New Year's Eve is a global existential moment, ripe with anticipation and expectations. It invites a spiritually cathartic time of reflection, offers us hope for change and invites us to make new choices. Resolutions can become reality, when we turn to the One who makes it possible, the One who truly makes all things new, Jesus Christ the Lord.Our choices make us become the persons we become. In our choosing we not only have the potential to change the world around us, we change ourselves. In 2018, may we choose to live our lives in, with and for Jesus Christ. That is the way to turn those resolutions into reality and experience a real New Year.

St Josemaria Escriva once wrote: For a son of God each day should be an opportunity for renewal, knowing for sure that with the help of grace he will reach the end of the road, which is Love. That is why if you begin and begin again, you are doing well. If you have a will to win, if you struggle, then with God's help you will conquer. There will be no difficulty you cannot overcome.' (The Forge, 344)

CHESAPEAKE, VA (Catholic Online) - New Year's Eve celebrations are staggered around the globe due to the different time zones, but we all have this in common, no matter where we live geographically - we welcome the end of one calendar year and the beginning of a new one. The manner of celebrating may differ, but we also share a common hope, that we can begin again. That hope can find its ultimate fulfillment by turning the One who can make all things new, Jesus Christ.In the third chapter of John's Gospel we read about an encounter between Nicodemus and Jesus. Jesus tells this devout Jewish leader, "Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born anew, he cannot see the kingdom of God." The phrase born anew can also be translated born again or born from above, in the original Greek.

Nations use different calendars, but the passing of one year to the next is universally marked by a deliberate period of reflection concerning the year that passed and a pledge to begin anew, to change, in the year to come. This is because we all hunger to be made new and, intuitively, we all know that means we must change within if we want to experience change around us.Understandably, the leader, a devout man, was somewhat confused by these words. The encounter continues, "Nicodemus said to him, "How can a man be born when he is old? Can he enter a second time into his mother's womb and be born?"(John 3:5)

The same John who wrote the Gospel, also wrote the last book of the Bible, the Book of Revelation, while he was imprisoned on the island of Patmos. He was given a vision of the ultimate fulfillment of the desire which surfaces during every commemoration of every New Year, that wonderful day when the Lord will return and make all things new. With those words I conclude:

GK Chesterton once wrote: "The object of a New Year is not that we should have a new year. It is that we should have a new soul and a new nose; new feet, a new backbone, new ears, and new eyes. Unless a particular man made New Year resolutions, he would make no resolutions.Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth; for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more. And I saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband; and I heard a great voice from the throne saying, "Behold, the dwelling of God is with men. He will dwell with them, and they shall be his people, and God himself will be with them; he will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning nor crying nor pain any more, for the former things have passed away. And he who sat upon the throne said, Behold, I make all things new. (Rev 21: 1-5)

Unless a man starts afresh about things, he will certainly do nothing effective. Unless a man starts on the strange assumption that he has never existed before, it is quite certain that he will never exist afterwards. Unless a man be born again, he shall by no means enter into the Kingdom of Heaven."In and through Jesus Christ, there is a path to being made new. He walked that path up the mountain of Golgotha, and through the tomb to the Resurrection. That promise of being made new, being born again, is at the heart of the Gospel, the Good News! St. Paul reminded the Christians in the City of Corinth - and reminds every one of us - "whoever is in Christ is a new creation: the old things have passed away; behold, new things have come.(2 Cor. 5:17)

As we end one year and look to a new one, we pause to take inventory. In a rare moment of reflection and honest self-assessment, we admit our failures. We pledge to learn from them and move toward a better future. We all want to be better, to live our lives more fully and to love one another more selflessly. So, we make resolutions.

New Year's Day is a global existential moment, ripe with anticipation and expectations. It invites a spiritually cathartic time of reflection, offers us hope for change and invites us to make new choices. Resolutions can become reality, when we turn to the One who makes it possible, the One who truly makes all things new, Jesus Christ the Lord.

Every New Year I read numerous articles about the questionable efficacy of these New Year's Resolutions. However, the fact remains, we all make them. The experience is universal. The question is - why do we do it? I suggest that they reveal something of our deepest longing. They present us with an invitation to exercise our human freedom and to choose a better way of life. But, we cannot do it on our own. We need God.

In Little Gidding, the last of the four quartets written by T.S. Elliot, we find these often quoted words: "Both bad and good. Last season's fruit is eaten And the full fed beast shall kick the empty pail.  For last year's words belong to last year's language. And next year's words await another voice. What we call the beginning is often the end. And to make and end is to make a beginning."