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The Christmas Cycle
Our spiritual life really consists in a growth in Christ. For this reason all worldly and carnal
desires and ambitions must be set aside. The life of the Christian must be modeled after the
life of Christ.
Prayer
Grant, we beseech Thee, almighty God that we who are bathed in the new light of Thy Word
made flesh, may show forth in our actions that which by faith shineth in our minds. Through
the same Christ our Lord. Amen.
Second Week after Christmas
January 1, Our New Year Program
Although the liturgy of the Church does not provide for the celebration of New Year’s Day, we
should not for this reason pass over it lightly. We should at this time reconsider the program
which the Church outlined for us at the beginning of the liturgical year, a program both positive
and negative. We are to renounce all worldly lusts and practice piety.
The Redeemer who came to live among us makes it clear to us that in the sight of God only one
thing is necessary: the salvation of our immortal soul. All the actions of our life, then, should be
directed to the salvation of our own soul and that of our neighbor. Indifference to the claims of
God and to the fate of the soul in the world to come, is the besetting sin of our age. Life in our
times is so clamorous and so urgent in its solicitations that it threatens to blind us and close our
eyes to our true destiny. Our lives become worldly and we neglect the needs of our soul. The
Church shows us how to avoid this danger, and in the Epistle for the feast of the Circumcision
we are directed to renounce all “ungodliness and worldly desires” that might captivate us and
interfere with the salvation of our soul.
Not only must we avoid those things that might harm us, but we must also do something
positive: “We should live soberly and justly and godly.” We must live soberly, that is,
be moderate in our thoughts, words, and actions, making them conform to the truths of our
faith; justly, that is, giving every man what is due him, but not forgetting the claims of God
and our fellow man, the claims of nature, grace, and our own soul, and even the just claims of
our body. We must live “godly,” that is, we must be sustained by a childlike confidence in the
heavenly Father, whose children we have become by reason of our brotherhood with Christ.
We must live with the conviction that His fatherly care and loving hand are always guiding us,
protecting us, and sanctifying us.
“Looking for the blessed hope and coming of the glory of the great God and our Savior,
Jesus Christ” (Epistle). All temporal things must pass away, but they point the way to that
which is enduring and eternal, which alone can satisfy our souls. Now we wait for the day
when eternity will begin for us and the Lord will return in majesty. Thus He shall come to
us at the moment of our death and on the day of the Last Judgment. Our faith teaches us to
believe that death merely opens for us the gates of eternity. If our lives have been worthy, the
Lord upon His return will unite our transfigured souls to our bodies. This holy hope prompts
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