Is this the year?

Homily

2nd Sunday in Ordinary Time A2

18 January 2026

St. Ann Catholic Church Prairie Village

AMDG

Is this the year?

You know what I'm talking about?  Will 2026 really be any different?  Will this be the year when my hopes are realized, and my resolutions are more than just wishful thinking?  Will my desire to be more alive, and to truly love the will of God, find real traction?  Or will it be another year that slips through my fingers, when I'm afraid of what it takes for real transformation to happen in my soul?

I'm not sure why there's a viral trend to post pictures from 2016.  Maybe it's a good thing, to remember what has changed in the last 10 years, and what has not.  Maybe it's a reminder especially that there is much I hoped for in 2016 that remains unfulfilled, and to wonder why.

Again real change is more than wishful thinking for circumstances to magically change in a new year.  I'm fond of having a word of the year, and sharing it with my friends, as a small means of my being accountable to the gift and responsibility of my life.  My word this year is joy, the fruit of a memorable conversation I had with a parishioners who said the parish needs to see me having more fun, for if the priesthood is not a joyful life, no mother would ever want her son to be a priest.  I have a superabundance of good things that have been poured into my lap, so much so that it is very ungrateful for me to be obsessed with what I don't or can't have.   My resolution is to fully enjoy the life I have chosen and been given. We will see if it really makes a difference.

I like to think that so long as I am faithful to prayer, exercise, spiritual direction and therapy, that I will grow in health and holiness, and that 2026 will be my best year yet.  Yet I'm not always convinced that this is more than wishful thinking.  

How about you?  Will 2026 be any different for you?  Is this the year?

The Church has us reflecting on baptism two weeks in a row to start ordinary time in 2026.  Why the redundancy?  It's because the promise of our baptism is our greatest opportunity for holiness, greatness and the fullness of life.  No other resolution could compare to us fully knowing the dignity and destiny of my baptism.  

Yet in our fallen condition, our greatest desire and potential is met with by the greatest fear.  It's the fear of letting go of our sins that makes the quest for real greatness so scary.  It is the total eradication of sins from our lives that free us to ultimately live heroic lives of courage, loving the will of God with incredible strength, and making a total and sacrificial gift of ourselves within the paschal mystery of Christ.  Anything less than the total eradication of sin from our lives is lukewarm, weak sauce, and tentative.

Behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!  This shocking, revolutionary proclamation of John the Baptist is meant to shock us out of complacency and back into the promise of our baptism, into a real, total and uncompromising desire for a holiness that is new and different and more.  The unique proclamation of John the Baptist is repeated at every Mass, at a penultimate moment, to bring us clarity as to what is really at stake, the complete removal of any sin in my life that keeps me trapped in fear.

There could be no greater resolution in 2026 that to respond to the grace of my baptism, fed by the Eucharist, the Lamb of God who completely frees me from all sin by the inner working of his mercy.

How's that for a 2026 resolution?  Is this the year?

+mj