Friday, January 13, 2017

SINNERS AND TAX COLLECTORS


Homily for January 14th, 2017: Mark 2:13-17.

          “As [Jesus] passed by, he saw Levi, son of Alphaeus, sitting at the customs post. Jesus said to him, ‘Follow me.’ And he got up and followed Jesus.” There is no Levi in the gospel lists of Jesus’ apostles. Scholars assume, therefore, that this Levi was identical with Matthew, whose call is described in the ninth chapter of Matthew’s gospel.

There, and here as well, he is identified as a tax collector. He was not the kind of tax collector we know today, a civil servant. In the Palestine of Jesus’ day the Roman government of occupation entrusted the collection of taxes to tax farmers, as they are sometimes called, who bid for the right to collect taxes. In doing so, they enriched themselves by extorting more than was required. They were hated, therefore, for two reasons: for preying on people financially; and for serving the despised Roman rulers of the land. 

          Jesus speaks just two words to Levi: “Follow me.” Without hesitation, Levi gets up and follows Jesus. Other disciples of Jesus have already done the same, when, at Jesus’ command, they abandoned the tools of their trade as fishermen, their boats and nets, to follow Jesus. What motivated this immediate obedience? I think that if we could have questioned any of them, Levi or Matthew included, they would have replied: “There was something about this man, Jesus, which made it impossible to say no.” 

          As a parting gesture Levi invites his friends to dinner at his house, with Jesus as the honored guest. As we would expect, many of those friends were Levi’s fellow tax collectors. Others were simply “sinners,” as the gospel reading calls them: Jews, like Levi, who did not keep God’s law.

Observing these disreputable guests, the Pharisees, proud of their exact observance of God’s law, ask Jesus’ other disciples how their Master can associate with such social outcasts. Jesus overhears the question and answers himself: “Those who are well do not need a physician, but the sick do. I did not come to call the righteous [by which Jesus means ‘people like you Pharisees’]. ‘I came to call sinners.’

What is the message for us? If we want Jesus’ loving care, we need first to recognize and confess our need. And the first thing every one of us needs from Jesus is forgiveness.

Thursday, January 12, 2017

"WE HAVE NEVER SEEN ANYTHING LIKE THIS."


Homily for Jan. 13th, 2017: Mark 2:1-12.
          “Child, your sins are forgiven,” Jesus says as he looks with tender love at the paralyzed man lying before him in today’s gospel reading. Jesus is not saying that anyone who is ill is being punished for sin. But his words suggest that Jesus saw in this particular man a spiritual burden that needed to be loosed before the man could be healed physically. 
          “We have never seen anything like this,” the onlookers exclaim in astonishment as they see the formerly paralyzed man pick up his mat and walk. For Mark, the gospel writer, the true miracle, however, is not the man’s physical cure, but the spiritual healing of forgiveness. 
          Perhaps you’re thinking: “What is so miraculous about forgiveness? Don’t we forgive others every day?” Thank God, we do. Between our forgiveness and God’s, however, there is this great difference. When we forgive, there is always a memory of the injury done, a “skeleton in the closet.” The wrong needs only to be repeated, or one like it, for the memory to be revived.
          God doesn’t have any closets. And even if he did, there wouldn’t be any skeletons there. God’s forgiveness is total. “Your sins I remember no more,” God tells us through the prophet. (43:25) Here’s a story about that.
A pious woman, given to visions, went to her bishop to tell him that God had asked her to tell the bishop to build a shrine to Jesus’ mother Mary. The bishop was understandably skeptical. “Go back to God,” he told his visitor, and ask him to tell you my worst sin as a young man. If the Lord gives you the correct answer, we’ll see about building this shrine.” When the woman returned, the bishop asked her: “What did God say was my worst sin as a young man?” The woman replied: “He said he couldn’t remember.”
          It’s only a story. But it is based in reality – a reality that is the real miracle in this story of the paralyzed man: that there can be, that there is, a forgiveness so complete that not even the memory of the sin remains. Jesus brings us this total forgiveness. The one who brings us this forgiveness is the Son of the God who tells his people, through Isaiah: “Your sins I remember no more.” (Is. 43:25)

Wednesday, January 11, 2017

JESUS' SACRIFICE, THEN AND NOW


2nd Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year A. John 1:29-34.
AIM: To explain the doctrine of eucharistic sacrifice.
 
ABehold, the Lamb of God!@ John=s words from the opening of the gospel reading we have just heard are so familiar to us that we don=t stop to ask what they mean. We hear the words immediately before Communion at every Mass, when the priest, holds up the Lord=s body and says: AThis is the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world.@ What do those words really mean?     
To understand them we must plunge into the distant history of Jesus= people and read about their greatest feast: the Passover. Here is the account from the book of Exodus, chapter 12:
Moses told the people, AGo and get a lamb for your families and slaughter it for the Passover. Then take some of the hyssop, dip it in the blood [of the lamb] and smear some of the blood ... on the door-posts and lintel. ... The Lord will go through Egypt and strike it, but when he sees the blood on the lintel and doorposts, he will pass over that door and will not let the destroyer enter your houses to strike you. You shall keep this as a rule of all time. When your children ask you, >What is the meaning of this rite?= you shall say: >It is the Lord=s Passover, for he passed over the houses of the Israelites in Egypt when he struck the Egyptians, but spared our houses.  (Ex. 12: 21-27)
The blood of the Passover lamb smeared on the doorposts kept the people safe. Later the lamb was thought of as sacrificed to God: a gift through which God and his human worshipers were reconciled. Such gifts, offered in sacrifice to God, were supposed to restore the fellowship which had been broken by human sin.
The prophets of Jesus= people criticized these sacrificial offerings. They were based, the prophets pointed out, on the fiction that the things offered to God represented those who offered them. What God really wants, the prophets said, is not things (since everything belongs to him already). God wants men and women themselves. But how could people really offer themselves to God in sacrifice? And to the extent that people did offer themselves in a spiritual sense, they were offering God gifts stained by sin. Hence the whole sacrificial system failed to achieve what it was meant to achieve. This a central theme of the Letter to the Hebrews:
Every priest [and the writer is talking about Jewish priests] stands performing his daily service and offering time after time the same sacrifices which can never take away sins. (Heb. 10:11)  
Hebrews also affirms, however, that a perfect, unblemished sacrifice has been offered. The fellowship between sinful humanity and God has been restored. (Cf. Heb. 10:12). Jesus is the priest who offers, and Jesus is himself the sacrifice offered. His life of perfect obedience to his heavenly Father, consummated on Calvary, Atakes away the sin of the world,@ as John says at the beginning of today=s gospel. As the blood of the Passover lamb protected Jesus= ancestors, so his blood protects us, his spiritual descendants. Because of our sins we are unworthy to stand before God, to pray to him, to claim his blessing. But as sisters and brothers of Jesus Christ we can do all these things. 
Jesus= sacrifice, which mends the fellowship between us and God, broken by our sins, is not just long ago and far away. Though the Last Supper and Calvary are unrepeatable, they become, here and now, a living reality each time we obey Jesus command at the Last Supper, to Ado this in memory of me@ with the bread and wine. To this day part of the Jewish Passover ritual is the child=s question: AWhat is the meaning of this rite?@ To which the person presiding replies: AIt is the Lord=s Passover.@ The unique past event is not repeated. But through its ritual celebration it becomes a living reality for the worshipers today.
 This is what we Catholics believe about the Mass. At the Last Supper, celebrated in the context of a Jewish Passover meal, Jesus took bread and said: AThis is my body.@ He meant: >This is me. When you do this I am truly with you. I give myself to you.= Saying over the cup, AThis is my blood,@ Jesus was telling us: >I am the one whose poured out blood keeps you safe, and brings you into a new relationship with God.= The bread and cup of this meal, previously a celebration of the Passover, are now a pledge of Jesus= personal presence with us, his friends.  That is the meaning of the offertory prayer we shall hear in a few moments: AWhen we proclaim the death of the Lord, you continue the work of his redemption.@
The Catechism says: AThe Eucharist is the memorial of Christ=s Passover, the making present and the sacramental offering of his unique sacrifice ... [1362] The memorial is not merely the recollection of past events but the proclamation of the mighty works wrought by God for men. In the liturgical celebration of these events, they become in a certain way present and real. ... [1363] The Eucharist is thus a sacrifice because it re-presents (makes present) the sacrifice of the cross, because it is its memorial and because it applies its fruit.@ [1366]
The Mass is not a repetition of the Last Supper and Calvary. It is, in a unique and specially intense way, their sacramental commemoration. It makes present, spiritually but truly, what it commemorates. When we Ado this@ with the bread and wine, as Jesus commanded, we are there! We are with the friends of Jesus in the upper room; with Mary and the Beloved Disciple at the cross. Here in the sacrifice of the Mass we encounter him who is the true Lamb of God: the one who destroys sin; who protects us through his poured-out blood from sin=s just penalty; the one through whom we can approach God, not in fear and trembling because of our sins, but in confidence and love; calling him, as Jesus taught us to do: AFather.@

So much meaning, so much wonder, so much drama!  How often do we recognize it, and truly worship?

JESUS' SACRIFICE, THEN AND NOW


JESUS= SACRIFICE, THEN AND NOW
2nd Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year A. John 1:29-34.
AIM: To explain the doctrine of eucharistic sacrifice.
 
ABehold, the Lamb of God!@ John=s words from the opening of the gospel reading we have just heard are so familiar to us that we don=t stop to ask what they mean. We hear the words immediately before Communion at every Mass, when the priest, holds up the Lord=s body and says: AThis is the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world.@ What do those words really mean?     
To understand them we must plunge into the distant history of Jesus= people and read about their greatest feast: the Passover. Here is the account from the book of Exodus, chapter 12:
Moses told the people, AGo and get a lamb for your families and slaughter it for the Passover. Then take some of the hyssop, dip it in the blood [of the lamb] and smear some of the blood ... on the door-posts and lintel. ... The Lord will go through Egypt and strike it, but when he sees the blood on the lintel and doorposts, he will pass over that door and will not let the destroyer enter your houses to strike you. You shall keep this as a rule of all time. When your children ask you, >What is the meaning of this rite?= you shall say: >It is the Lord=s Passover, for he passed over the houses of the Israelites in Egypt when he struck the Egyptians, but spared our houses.  (Ex. 12: 21-27)
The blood of the Passover lamb smeared on the doorposts kept the people safe. Later the lamb was thought of as sacrificed to God: a gift through which God and his human worshipers were reconciled. Such gifts, offered in sacrifice to God, were supposed to restore the fellowship which had been broken by human sin.
The prophets of Jesus= people criticized these sacrificial offerings. They were based, the prophets pointed out, on the fiction that the things offered to God represented those who offered them. What God really wants, the prophets said, is not things (since everything belongs to him already). God wants men and women themselves. But how could people really offer themselves to God in sacrifice? And to the extent that people did offer themselves in a spiritual sense, they were offering God gifts stained by sin. Hence the whole sacrificial system failed to achieve what it was meant to achieve. This a central theme of the Letter to the Hebrews:
Every priest [and the writer is talking about Jewish priests] stands performing his daily service and offering time after time the same sacrifices which can never take away sins. (Heb. 10:11)  
Hebrews also affirms, however, that a perfect, unblemished sacrifice has been offered. The fellowship between sinful humanity and God has been restored. (Cf. Heb. 10:12). Jesus is the priest who offers, and Jesus is himself the sacrifice offered. His life of perfect obedience to his heavenly Father, consummated on Calvary, Atakes away the sin of the world,@ as John says at the beginning of today=s gospel. As the blood of the Passover lamb protected Jesus= ancestors, so his blood protects us, his spiritual descendants. Because of our sins we are unworthy to stand before God, to pray to him, to claim his blessing. But as sisters and brothers of Jesus Christ we can do all these things. 
Jesus= sacrifice, which mends the fellowship between us and God, broken by our sins, is not just long ago and far away. Though the Last Supper and Calvary are unrepeatable, they become, here and now, a living reality each time we obey Jesus command at the Last Supper, to Ado this in memory of me@ with the bread and wine. To this day part of the Jewish Passover ritual is the child=s question: AWhat is the meaning of this rite?@ To which the person presiding replies: AIt is the Lord=s Passover.@ The unique past event is not repeated. But through its ritual celebration it becomes a living reality for the worshipers today.
 This is what we Catholics believe about the Mass. At the Last Supper, celebrated in the context of a Jewish Passover meal, Jesus took bread and said: AThis is my body.@ He meant: >This is me. When you do this I am truly with you. I give myself to you.= Saying over the cup, AThis is my blood,@ Jesus was telling us: >I am the one whose poured out blood keeps you safe, and brings you into a new relationship with God.= The bread and cup of this meal, previously a celebration of the Passover, are now a pledge of Jesus= personal presence with us, his friends.  That is the meaning of the offertory prayer we shall hear in a few moments: AWhen we proclaim the death of the Lord, you continue the work of his redemption.@
The Catechism says: AThe Eucharist is the memorial of Christ=s Passover, the making present and the sacramental offering of his unique sacrifice ... [1362] The memorial is not merely the recollection of past events but the proclamation of the mighty works wrought by God for men. In the liturgical celebration of these events, they become in a certain way present and real. ... [1363] The Eucharist is thus a sacrifice because it re-presents (makes present) the sacrifice of the cross, because it is its memorial and because it applies its fruit.@ [1366]
The Mass is not a repetition the Last Supper and Calvary. It is, in a unique and specially intense way, their sacramental commemoration. It makes present, spiritually but truly, what it commemorates. When we Ado this@ with the bread and wine, as Jesus commanded, we are there! We are with the friends of Jesus in the upper room; with Mary and the Beloved Disciple at the cross. Here in the sacrifice of the Mass we encounter him who is the true Lamb of God: the one who destroys sin; who protects us through his poured-out blood from sin=s just penalty; the one through whom we can approach God, not in fear and trembling because of our sins, but in confidence and love; calling him, as Jesus taught us to do: AFather.@

So much meaning, so much wonder, so much drama!  How often do we recognize it, and truly worship?

"YOU CAN CURE ME."


Homily for January 12th, 2017: Mark 1:40-45.

          Lepers, in Jesus’ day, suffered not only from their disease, but also from exclusion from normal society. They were banned from public places. And since they were considered spiritually unclean they could not participate in Temple worship. Anyone who touched a leper also became spiritually unclean.

          This helps us understand why the man we have just heard about in the gospel reading is so desperate. He kneels down before Jesus, Mark tells us, and pleads with Jesus, “If you will to do so, you can cure me.”  The man’s faith in Jesus’ power to heal is crucial. Faith opens the door for God’s action in our lives.

          Out of compassion with this social outcast Jesus responds at once. Reaching out across the boundary between clean and unclean, Jesus touches the man, saying: “I do will it. Be cured.” The leprosy “left him immediately,” Mark tells us. Jesus has restored him to the community of God’s people. Jesus then orders the man not to publicize his healing. He did not wish to be known as a sensational wonder-worker. Instead he orders the man to fulfill the provisions of the Jewish law by going to a Temple priest and offering sacrifice. Jewish priests were then also quarantine officials.

          The man disobeys Jesus’ command. He is so thrilled by his healing that he immediately starts telling everybody about it. Whether he reported his healing to the Temple priest, Mark does not tell us. What Mark does report is that the notoriety caused by news of this healing made it “impossible for Jesus to enter a town openly. He remained outside in desert places, and people kept coming to him from everywhere.”                

          People are still coming to Jesus from everywhere. They sense in him someone who can change their lives for the better. In that they are right. Jesus is the one, and the only one, who can give us healing from our self-centeredness, our addictions and bad habits. He alone can give us, beyond healing, what our hearts most deeply desire: happiness, joy, and peace so deep that it passes human understanding.

          First, however, we must come, as the leper came, with the prayer: “If you wish, Lord, you can make cure me.”

Tuesday, January 10, 2017

"HE WENT TO A LONELY PLACE IN THE DESERT."


Homily for January 11th, 2017. Mark 1:29-39.

          In Jesus’ world there were no blood tests, X-rays, or microscopes. People thought that illness of various kinds was due to possession by demons. Today’s gospel portrays Jesus as one who has power over these supernatural forces of evil. Jesus comes from the supernatural world. As God’s Son, Jesus has power over the evil forces in that supernatural world. That is why Mark, the gospel writer, tells us that Jesus would not permit these supernatural forces of evil to speak, “because they knew him.” Jesus did not want to acquire the reputation of a sensational wonder-worker. He was that, yes; but he was so much more.

  He banishes the life-threatening fever which has laid Peter’s mother-in-law low. And he drives out the demons in the many people who are brought to him for healing. Mark’s language shows that he is describing what we today call “exorcisms.” Freed from demonic possession, these people are healed at once. There is no period of convalescence. Peter’s mother-in-law, we heard, “got up immediately and waited on them.”

          Especially significant is the information that at daybreak, “Jesus went off to a lonely place in the desert.” Why? He needed to be alone with his heavenly Father. It was in such times of silence and solitude that Jesus acquired the spiritual power to heal; and to say to rough working men, “Follow me,” – and have them obey him on the spot. And if Jesus, whose inner resources were incomparably greater than ours, needed those times alone with the Lord, we are fools, and guilty fools, if we think we can make it in reliance on our own resources alone. That’s why we are here. To receive all the goodness, love, purity, and power of Jesus – our elder brother, our lover, and our best friend; but also our divine Savior and Redeemer.

And friends, when we have him, Jesus, we have everything. 

Monday, January 9, 2017

"A NEW TEACHING, WITH AUTHORITY."


Homily for January 10th, 2017: Mark 1:21-28.

          In today’s gospel Mark describes a typical day in Jesus’ public ministry. It is a Sabbath, so Jesus goes to the synagogue in Capernaum. The service consisted of readings from Scripture, psalms, prayers, and teaching. For this any Jewish man with sufficient scriptural knowledge was qualified. Ordination as a rabbi was not necessary. Jesus’ teaching was different, however, from that of the other teachers of his day. This is clear from his hearers’ reaction. “The people were astonished at his teaching,” Mark tells us. “For he taught them as one having authority and not as the scribes.”

          What was this “authority” that Jesus had, and other teachers did not? We see it most clearly in the fifth chapter of Matthew’s gospel, which begins Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount. There we hear Jesus citing a number of the Ten Commandments which God had given to Moses. He introduces each with the phrase: “You have heard the Commandment.” Then, each time, Jesus says: “But I say unto you.” Jesus is not interpreting God’s law, like all the other teachers. He is speaking as himself the law giver. It was this authoritative way of speaking which astonished Jesus’ hearers.  

          Jesus’ deeds manifest the same authority, in particular his healings. People in that day attributed illness to possession by “demons”, invisible but powerful spiritual forces. In today’s gospel reading, as often in the gospels, Jesus’ very presence causes demons to cry out in protest. The presence of the One who is without sin alarms these evil spirits. “What have you to do with us?” a demon cries out in today’s gospel. “I know who you are – the Holy One of God.” Jesus uses his spiritual power as Son of the all-holy God to rebuke and banish the demon. “Quiet! Come out of him!” Jesus says. And Mark tells us: “The unclean spirit convulsed him and with a loud cry came out of him.”   

          Less dramatically, but no less authoritatively, Jesus continues to cast out demons today: addiction to alcohol, drugs, or sex; the relentless quest for more, and more, and more – whether it is money, honor, or power over others – a quest which never succeeds but produces only frustration and disappointment. If you see any of those things in your life, then come to Jesus. He still has power to heal. As the old evangelical hymn has it: “Cast your eyes upon Jesus / Look full in his wonderful grace. / And the things of earth will grow strangely dim / In the light of his glory and grace.

Sunday, January 8, 2017

JESUS' VOCATION, AND OURS.


JESUS= VOCATION C AND OURS.
Baptism of the Lord. Is. 42;1-4, 6-7; Mt. 3:13-17
AIM: To show the happiness of a God-centered life.
 
In his posthumously published book, Treasure in Clay, the late Archbishop Fulton Sheen writes: ANo true vocation starts with >what I want=, or >what I would like to do,= it starts with God.@ I quote these words because the gospel reading we have just heard shows us Jesus entering publicly on his vocation. As he does so Jesus= first concern is to show that he is a man under obedience. When John objects: AI need to be baptized by you, and yet you are coming to me?@ Jesus responds: AAllow it now, for thus it is fitting for us to fulfill all righteousness.@ 
ATo fulfill all righteousness@ meant, for Jesus, doing the will of his heavenly Father. That was all that ever mattered for Jesus. Each one of us was given a similar task when we were baptized. Like Jesus, we are called Ato fulfil all righteousness@ by serving God and others. Responding to that call is the highest and best thing we can do with the one life that God has given us. Do we really believe that?
Many people do not. The ambition of many people is to Ado their own thing,@ as the popular modern phrase puts it. Actually, few of us succeed very well in doing our own thing.  Rich or poor, female or male, black or white, young, middle-aged or old, all of us are limited by circumstances not of our own making. The poor wish they were rich; the rich think they still don=t have enough, and spend much of their time guarding what they do have from loss. No wonder that so many people feel they=re on a treadmill; or say: AIts war out there.@ 
Part of the gospel, the good news which Jesus Christ proclaims, is that it doesn=t have to be like that. There is another way to live: a better way, and certainly a happier one. It is the way Jesus lived. Jesus was never concerned with doing his own thing. He wanted one thing only: to do God=s thing. 
Pope, now Saint, John Paul II was another person who found happiness in  doing not his own thing but God=s thing. Weighed down in his closing years by infirmities, a physical wreck yet still mentally alert, Pope John Paul was a sign to all the world that life is still worth living, even when one is old and infirm. On the eve of his eightieth birthday, the Pope wrote a letter ATo my elderly brothers and sisters.@ Here is some of what he said: ADespite the limitations brought on by age, I continue to enjoy life. For this I thank the Lord. It is wonderful to be able to give oneself to the very end for the sake of the Kingdom of God!@
The concluding paragraphs of this beautiful letter have a message for all of us: whatever our age or circumstances. Let me conclude by reading them to you.
I find great peace in thinking of the time when the Lord will call me: from life to life! And so I often find myself saying, with no trace of melancholy, a prayer recited by priests after the celebration of the Eucharist: AAt the hour of my death call me and bid me come to you.@  This is the prayer of Christian hope, which in no way detracts from the joy of the present, while entrusting the future to God=s gracious and loving care. ABid me come to you!@: this is the deepest yearning of the human heart, even in those who are not conscious of it.   
Grant, O Lord of life, that we may be ever vividly aware of this and that we may savor every season of our lives as a gift filled with promise for the future.  Grant that we may lovingly accept your will, and place ourselves each day in your merciful hands.
And when the moment of our definitive Apassage@ comes, grant that we may face it with serenity, without regret for what we shall leave behind. For in meeting you, after having sought you for so long, we shall find once more every authentic good which we have known here on earth, in the company of all who have done before us marked with the sign of faith and hope.   

Mary, Mother of pilgrim humanity, pray for us Anow and at the hour of our death.@  Keep us ever close to Jesus, your beloved Son and our brother, the Lord of life and glory.  Amen!

"HERE IS MY SERVANT . . . "


Homily for January 9th, 2017. Baptism of the Lord: Isaiah 42:1-4, 6-7a.

          “Here is my servant whom I uphold, my chosen one with whom I am pleased.” From the day those words were written, people have been asking: “Who is the prophet talking about?” The words introduce one of the so-called “Suffering Servant” passages in the second part of the Old Testament book of Isaiah. The author, called by scholars “the Second Isaiah,” is addressing God’s people after their return from decades of exile in Babylon. Whoever this Suffering Servant may have been in the mind of the author, the Church has always read the passages which describe him as referring to Jesus Christ. Hence the appearance of one such passage on this day when we celebrate Jesus’ baptism by his cousin, John the Baptist.

          The words of our first reading tell us that this Suffering Servant will not cry out, will not shout, will not make his voice heard above the hubbub of the street. The words which follow are consistent: “A bruised reed he shall not break, a smoldering wick he shall not quench.” The prophet is sketching someone who is gentle, who respects us as we are: sinful, weak, often confused; a man who never dominates us, forces himself upon us, or smothers us.

          Quietly and gently, but with unmatched spiritual power, Jesus appeals to us by the force of his example. If ever there was a true Man for Others, it was and is Jesus. He wants us too to be people for others: people who put God first, others second, and ourselves last. Why does Jesus want that for us? Because he knows that only by living for others can we find the deep and lasting happiness that each one of us wants, deep in our hearts.

          “I’ve started to look for a wife,” a man just past 30 told me in a recent e-mail. “I’ll be praying for you,” I responded. Then I gave him this advice. Look for someone who is more interested in giving than in getting. And to enhance your chance of success be a giving person yourself. To help him understand that advice I cited a remark by Great Britain’s leader during World War II, Winston Churchill. Though not a particularly religious man Churchill spoke a profound truth when he said: “We make a living by what we get. We make a life by what we give.”

Take those words with you into the New Year, try every day to act on them, and you will greatly increase the chances of it being for you a truly happy New Year.