Happy New Year from Cross Catholic Outreach!
Most of us are spending today reflecting on 2012—recalling the blessings of last year, while resolving to make 2013 the year to follow through on abandoned resolutions of the past.
A fresh start. Isn’t that one of the best things about today’s holiday? A new year gives us an opportunity to leave behind the mistakes, challenges and disappointments of yesterday and begin anew. And as we reset, we are filled with hopeful expectation of better things to come.
But thankfully, as Catholics, we don’t always need a new year to celebrate a new start. 2 Corinthians 5:17 says, “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come!”
Every day Christ offers to wash us clean from our sins and failures and gives us the freedom to walk in his steps—and walking in our Lord’s steps quite often leads to loving and helping those in desperate need.
So on the advent of this new year, whether you find yourself in a difficult situation or are looking to reach out to others who are struggling from poverty and pain, be encouraged by God’s promise to us:
“See, I am doing a new thing! Now it springs up; do you not perceive it? I am making a way in the desert and streams in the wasteland.” (Isaiah 43:19)
We can rest assured that no matter how bleak the circumstances and no matter how overwhelming the problems of the past, the Lord is able to do a new and wonderful thing.
So, happy New Year to you, friends of Cross Catholic Outreach! Please join us in giving thanks to God for continuing to make streams in the desert for the poorest of the poor. May you and your families be blessed in 2013!
-Annie W.
