December 2024: Making Room for God's Will in Our New Year’s Resolutions

When Saint Norbert established the first community, the Order at Prémontré, he wanted to create a “new way” of religious life, based on the life of the apostles. It would be both a monastic and pastoral life, living and praying in community as monks while serving the needs of the people outside of the abbey. It was a time of reform in the Catholic Church, and Saint Norbert was among the great thinkers and reformers who helped shape what the future Church would become.

With the New Year, making “resolutions” has become a tradition. Goals are set. Commitments are made to achieve the goals, and mindsets are focused on placing priority and resources, whatever they may be, to achieve the goals. Whether it’s doing something like regular workouts, or giving up something, like spending less time on the cellphone, the historical claim is that more than half of us don’t follow through on our self-made resolutions, often times, before the month of January is over. Making change happen and sticking to it is difficult.

Why was Saint Norbert so successful in realizing his vision for a new style of community in the Church? Tom Kunkel, in his book, Man on Fire, writes, “. . . when the community was not in prayer its focus was almost exclusively on work - hard manual labor. There were fields to clear, crops to plant and cultivate, water to draw and haul, animals to be tended (and their stables to be built and cleaned). . . . It was gritty, grimy work . . . “ (p.77) Norbert supported his followers in his work by preaching to them every morning and evening, and serving as a support and an example to them by the life he led - one of prayer and work. His commitment to his vision was so very strong, and his daily regimen supported his mental and physical capacities. Yet, he seemed to be restless, always wanting to do more and responding to requests from many nobles who wanted to establish his way of life in their castles and manors. Perhaps in his mind, his work was never done.

I became familiar with the life of another great saint when I worked with the Brothers of Holy Cross - Saint André Bessette (1845-1937). As a young orphan - the youngest of twelve children - he was not accepted into the Holy Cross community at first, because he was so frail and the superior of the community felt that he would be more of a burden than a contributor to the small religious community. It was by order of the Bishop that Saint André was accepted into the Holy Cross community in Montréal, Canada. 

As a Holy Cross brother, he served as the doorman and cleaned bedpans of the sick, who were cared for by the Brothers. However, he had such a kind and approachable way of engaging with others, people sought him out to share with him their personal concerns and problems. His response was always: “Go to Joseph.” He had a deep devotion to Saint Joseph, so much so that a small shrine to Saint Joseph was constructed on a nearby hill where he often prayed. Many people claimed that Brother André cured them of illnesses and his response was always that it was through the intercession of Saint Joseph, not himself, that they were cured. 

As he grew older, more pilgrims came to see him and pray to Saint Joseph in the small chapel; in 1904 he took on the task of constructing a larger church dedicated to Saint Joseph. The church was of huge proportions, and it was located near the original small chapel on the hill - Mont Royal. Part way through the construction in 1927, funding ran out, and several turns of events made it seem unlikely that the church would be completed. At that point the “lower church” was constructed, but the main church was without a roof. Saint André asked that a statue of Saint Joseph be placed in the area of the upper church and was attributed to say, “If Saint Joseph wants a roof over his head, he will find a way for us to complete the project.” The project, in fact, was completed in 1941 with the construction of the roof and dome. The Oratory of Saint Joseph on Mont Royal is the largest church in Canada, where Saint Joseph is the patron saint of the country. Thousands of pilgrims from around the world visit each year. Saint André, whose body is buried in the crypt under the Oratory, would not see his project completed during his lifetime.

So it seems that both Saint Norbert and Saint André were passionate about their beliefs and remained committed to the visions they each had. However, they both realized that they could not achieve their goals without faith in God and in God’s plan. Neither experienced a smooth, straight path to the realization of their plans, and both possessed the humility to realize that, at some point, things were beyond their control and they needed to trust that God would show them the way, giving them the next steps to take.

When we think about our New Year’s resolutions - probably not so grand as to establish a new religious community or a country’s national shrine - we need to keep in mind that our sincere efforts and hard work are important, but we also need to make room for God’s will. So, maybe we should add a resolution to our resolutions that we will try to make time daily to “listen” to what God is saying to us, discerning what we should do in a particular situation, how to best use the time we have, or just pause to take a breath and listen in silence.

Happy New Year!

Michael A. Marinelli, Ed.D. ‘76

Head of School