How are your New Year’s resolutions going? Yeah, me too.
Although we get a soft opening for the New Year with the Epiphany, unfortunately we are now squarely back in Ordinary Time and I’m still struggling to get off the Christmas train.
To help me make some headway on my resolutions, it might be time for me to call in the big guns — the saints — for help.
Eating better
I think my first prayer appointment needs to be with St. John the Baptist. I suspect I’m being a bit too gentle with myself when it comes to my eating habits. I have to remind myself that texting about the carpool and driving kids to their sporting events does not count as exercise, no matter how many thousands of mental laps I’ve made to ensure everyone has gotten to the right place on time.
The next time I want to supplement my sensible dinner with the leftover crackers in my kids’ lunchboxes, a hot fudge sundae, and a glass of red wine, I’ll bring my concern to the holy hermit, who subsisted on locusts and wild honey. I’ll imagine myself tapping his camel hair garment, interrupting him during his desert prayer, and telling him that my chicken salad is a bit wanting. I imagine he would graciously offer to share his dinner with me, and I’m hoping the locust in his outstretched hand will help me gain a little perspective and persevere in moderate eating.
Being more organized
Next up, I’m going to get St. Maximilian Kolbe on the horn and commiserate about how hard it is to stay organized when you’re busy doing the Lord’s work. (If you’re a fellow messy desker, Google “St. Maximilian Kolbe desk” for some encouragement that you’re not a lost cause. One of us became a canonized saint!) But then, I’m going to have to ask St. Zita for help in actually ticking off the to-do list in my home planner. St. Zita worked as a housekeeper for a wealthy Italian weaver. She performed her duties perfectly and still found time for daily Mass, prayers, and service to the poor.
She will understand how difficult it is to do all the chores necessary to keep a home clean and organized, but the 13th century saint won’t understand why I’m putting off doing the laundry when there’s a huge machine waiting to do the dirty work at the touch of a button.
A more positive attitude
And finally, with temps dipping to impossible lows, it seems appropriate to make a more concerted effort to be cheerful, no matter if there’s frost on the door jams — inside — our house. For this, it seems right to call on St. Thomas More, who penned this prayer:
Grant me, O Lord, good digestion, and also something to digest.
Grant me a healthy body, and the necessary good humor to maintain it.
Grant me a simple soul that knows to treasure all that is good and that doesn’t frighten easily at the sight of evil, but rather finds the means to put things back in their place.
Give me a soul that knows not boredom, grumblings, sighs and laments, nor excess of stress, because of that obstructing thing called “I”.
Grant me, O Lord, a sense of good humor.
Allow me the grace to be able to take a joke, to discover in life a bit of joy, and to be able to share it with others.
A blessed 2024 to you and best wishes on your New Year’s resolutions!
Meg Matenaer is a wife, mom, social media writer, and author residing in the Diocese of Madison.