St. Sylvester, the end of the civil year.

The flame of this year’s candle is burning out. In a few hours, this year will be a thing of the past. Before the twelfth stroke of the old year strikes and a new letter begins to be written, before we toast, congratulate all the good and what we consider necessary, and useful for the coming year, let’s stop, evaluate the old year ending and give thanks for all the graces, blessings, which we received from God.

John wrote to us about our God, who came among us as a man similar in everything except sin: “He came to his own, and his own did not receive him. But to those who received him, he gave the power to become children of God” (Jn 1:11-12). We could not wish for anything more beautiful than that God came personally among us, that he lived the same life and under the same circumstances, although it was almost two millennia ago and in Palestine. His life from Bethlehem to Jerusalem, from the manger to the cross, speaks of love and love again. From his fullness, we have all received grace upon grace. He showed us the way where we should not have known the consequences of sin, which we remember today even as the year ends. Jesus Christ, the eternal Word, the true God with the Father and the Holy Spirit, desires our presence for all eternity in union with God. No one has ever seen God. The only-begotten Son of God, who is in the arms of the Father, brought the news about him. This news is not only a stop at the manager but also a stop on the last day of the civil year. He, whom we call the Word and who was in the beginning, desires that we all believe through him.

A serious part of our life is ending. How many more do we have to go? None of us can be sure that in a year he will be among the living, that even next New Year’s Eve we will be blessed, by this God here on earth, to thank and beg. That is not in our hands, nor what is ending now. It is no longer possible to erase, erase, or erase anything from what was. We will not take back the word, we will not stop the deed, and even the thought in our mind is known to God. If we cannot change the past, and we are not masters of the future, then what can we do? The answer is clear. To experience the presence in connection with God. Realize the value of the present moment. The most precious moment in life is the one we are experiencing. It will not return any more than the water in the river will not return. You can’t stop it, so don’t even worry about what the future holds. We must live now, and for us, it means living in the presence of God. Just as we will read it before midnight from the Book of Ecclesiastes: ” There is a time for everything and a time for every effort under the heaven.” There is a time to be born, there is a time to die, there is a time to plant, and there is a time to pull up the seedlings… There is a time to cry, there is a time to laugh. There is a time to grieve, a time to dance…” (Ecclesiastes 3:1-4). We know an event from the life of the great saint St. Ignatius, who once told his professor St. To Francisco Xaver: “What does it profit a man to gain the whole world, but suffer damage to his soul?” A vain young man and a professor eager for fame, he sets out to find Christ. He does it perfectly. When he finds it, he declares: “He who has once known Christ will not be able to resist taking hold of him. But I assure you that there is no greater cross than to crucify oneself if we want to belong to Christ.”

This is to live daily from waking up until the last realization in bed in the evening that nothing that is not connected with God has no meaning and can only serve us for shame and damnation. Therefore, the motto of the spiritual family was founded by St. Ignatius, of which St. Francis Xavier is: “Everything for the greater honor and glory of God!” – “Omnia ad maiorem Dei Gloriam!” When we look at our ending year in the spirit of these words, we have something to fix, improve, and renounce. It ends this year. Let us entrust him to God’s mercy, God’s love, and the resolutions, seriously meant, that in the new year we want to live the teachings of our Redeemer and Savior more seriously, in experiencing the present moments, and all this for the greater honor and glory of God!

Before the candle of the ending year goes out, before the last stroke of the twelfth-hour strikes, let us evaluate our parish year, and how we have fulfilled our duties… Let us realize that these numbers do not say everything. Statistics can indicate a lot, but what is decisive is our inner self, our relationship with God, and our parish fulfillment of the duties that God asks of us and the Church requires.