Technically speaking, we Christians have already begun a new year. It began on December 1, the First Sunday of Advent. At the beginning of Advent, I wrote about newness. But since we are inevitably tied to secular calendars as well as liturgical calendars, as we begin 2025, we should once again reflect on newness. If you’ve watched our parish video, produced in the early summer of 2022, you will have noticed an intentional reference to the apostle Paul’s words: “if any one is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has passed away, behold, the new has come” (2 Corinthians 5:17). Those words of St. Paul encapsulate the recent history of this parish. Less than ten years ago, it looked as if this parish might close its doors, but God did something new. The newness that God brings is evident almost every day I spend here, and the parish video is itself proof of this ongoing newness. It’s already woefully out of date! So many new faces have arrived at Good Shepherd since that video was made, and sadly, some are no longer with us. So much new ministry has been birthed since the video was filmed. Good Shepherd, Rosemont, is a shining, visible example of God’s new creation among us. We who have experienced directly God’s power to make things new in this parish can and should give witness to this.
But we inhabit a world that is tired and worn down. It’s a world that primarily functions as if everything is old, and we don’t know how to cope with that reality. We rehash old grievances. We neglect the elderly among us, assuming that nothing new could occur in their lives. We hearken back to how things used to be, as if nothing good could come out of the future. We even think that some are worthy of death because they are defined by their former, corrupt past. We judge people by their worst mistakes. We despair of the Church having a glorious future again because she’s in decline. So we say.
And yet. . . and yet, God is always making things new. To be a Christian is to live in the hope that newness is always possible. The heart of our faith lies in the resurrection of Jesus from the dead, where even death itself doesn’t have the final word. Newness proliferates because Jesus still lives among us and the Holy Spirit enlivens our bodies, our hearts, and our imaginations. And God’s revival of this wonderful parish is living proof of that newness.
At this moment in time, the Church has a privilege and a duty to proclaim to a tired, worn, skeptical world that in Christ, a new creation is always possible. Can we live as if this is so? I wonder what this will look like at Good Shepherd. I like to imagine a new calendar year as an opportunity to dream about what the coming year will look like in the parish. What new people will God send our way to join us in ministry? What new ministry will take root here? What old ideas can be revived and realized in new ways?
Please mark January 26 on your calendars, which is when we’ll hold our 2025 annual parish meeting after Sung Mass. At this meeting, we’ll reflect on the old year with eyes of hope towards the new one. The visioning of a new future at Good Shepherd is not the sole provision of me your priest, nor is it only the responsibility of the vestry. Dreaming about a future graced by God’s newness is for all of us, which is why your presence at our parish meeting is so essential.
I hope you’ll join us for the Feast of the Epiphany, a Principal Feast of the Church year. If you’re in town, please prioritize this feast. We’ll close out the Christmas season with a Procession and Sung Mass on Monday, January 6, at 7 p.m. At that Mass, we’ll also bless chalk for the chalking of doors at home, an Epiphany tradition. A potluck supper will follow in the retreat house. Until then, savor the final days of Christmas. This is, after all, the season in which the wonder of God’s newness comes to us in the newness of a little Child, our Savior, in whom all things are made new.
Yours in Christ,
Father Kyle