{"id":354,"date":"2012-01-19T16:06:55","date_gmt":"2012-01-19T21:06:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/catholicbychoice\/?p=354"},"modified":"2012-01-19T22:46:13","modified_gmt":"2012-01-20T03:46:13","slug":"i-am-glad-to-be-back-at-beliefnet-it-is-time-to-begin-again","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/catholicbychoice\/2012\/01\/i-am-glad-to-be-back-at-beliefnet-it-is-time-to-begin-again.html","title":{"rendered":"I am Glad to Be Back at Beliefnet: It is Time to Begin Again"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>I have not written a column for Beliefnet in a long time. I have been writing a lot – just in other venues. As is the case with all of us, my life just seems to get busier and busier. However, I have not been able to get Beliefnet – and its potential for good – out of my mind or my heart. So, I begin again, I start anew with this column.At every new beginning I am reminded of one of my favorite passages from the Bible.<\/p>\n

“The one who sat on the throne said, “Behold, I make all things new.” (Jesus to St John, recorded in the Bible, in the Book of Revelation 21:5).<\/p>\n

Those five words from the Book of Revelation or the “Apocalypse” hold out the promise of the Gospel of Jesus Christ to all men and women in every Nation under the sun. They were spoken to the beloved disciple John on the Island of Patmos when he received a vision of the new heaven and new earth where the completion of the Redemption of Jesus Christ will be fully manifested.<\/p>\n

Those words “Behold I make all things new” took on new meaning for me several years ago when I watched a powerful scene in the Mel Gibson masterpiece, “The Passion of the Christ.” In it Mary, the Mother of the Lord, runs to her wounded Son. He has fallen for the third time from the weight of the Cross. There is a flash back to an earlier day when that same son, as a child, is seen playing in the dusty streets of Nazareth and is about to fall.<\/p>\n

With the tender love of a mother, Mary reaches out to her Son. Then the viewer sees her hand touch the wounded face of the Adult Son and Savior who looks at her, and through words addressed to her – He speaks to every human person – from the beginning of time until the end – saying: “Behold, I make all things new.” That is the hunger in the heart of every person.<\/p>\n

Every New Year’s eve, many of us resolve to “be better” in the coming year. Very quickly thereafter we are confronted with the reality of our human condition and our fractured freedom. We know that our resolutions to change often end in failure. We are prone to making wrong choices in daily life. We sin. Classical theology speaks of this inclination as “concupiscence”.<\/p>\n

The Apostle Paul wrote about this experience to the early Christians in Rome in the seventh chapter of his letter: “For I do not do the good I want, but I do the evil I do not want. Now if (I) do what I do not want, it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells in me… Miserable one that I am! Who will deliver me from this mortal body Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord.”<\/p>\n

Our freedom is a reflection of the Image of God within us. However, it was fractured by the effects of the first sin. Our ability to exercise it properly by choosing the good has been undermined as a result. In the words of Blessed John Paul II taken from his marvelous letter entitled “The Splendor of Truth”, our “freedom itself needs to be set free.” Through the Incarnation, Saving Life, Death and Resurrection of Jesus Christ it can be. By grace we are capacitated to live our lives differently now. Jesus can make all things new! Life is about beginning again, and again, and again.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Every New Year we read numerous articles about the efficacy of New Year’s Resolutions. However, the fact remains, we all make them. The experience is nearly universal. The question is why? I suggest that they reveal something of our universal longing.<\/p>\n

So too do our calendars. Some Nations use different calendars, but the passing of one year to another is marked by a deliberate period of reflection over the past year and a pledge to begin anew, to change, in the year to come. This is because we all hunger to be made new!<\/p>\n

GK Chesterton 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.”<\/p>\n

“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.”<\/p>\n

We all want to change, to be better, to live our lives more fully and learn to love one another more selflessly. As we end one year and look to a new one, we pause and take inventory. In a rare moment of near universal reflection and honest self assessment, we admit our failures.<\/p>\n

We pledge to learn from them and move toward a better future. In Little Gidding written by T.S. Eliott we find these often quoted words: “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 an end is to make a beginning.”<\/p>\n

Over the years I have realized that every end really can become a beginning, for the man or woman who has faith in the God who invites us to begin again, again and again. He alone makes it possible by sharing His very Life with us. This gift is called grace and through receiving it we become what the Apostle Peter called “Partakers of the Divine Nature”.(2 Peter 1:4)<\/p>\n

The older I get the more grateful I am that the promise to begin again is always available. The choice to receive the grace to begin again is also waiting, at the foot of the cross, for those who ask. In fact, we are always beginning again in life.One of my heroes of the faith is St. Jose Maria Escriva once wrote these words:<\/p>\n

‘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.’ (St. Jose Maria Escriva, The Forge, 344)<\/p>\n

In and through Jesus Christ, there is a way to be made new. We can always begin again. That is at the heart of the Gospel, the Good News!\u00a0 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)<\/p>\n

So, I am back at Beliefnet, beginning again.\u00a0I look forward to sharing with my readers, once again, all the reasons\u00a0I\u00a0am, a Catholic by Choice.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I have not written a column for Beliefnet in a long time. I have been writing a lot – just in other venues. As is the case with all of us, my life just seems to get busier and busier. However, I have not been able to get Beliefnet – and its potential for good…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":91,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[83,168,177,144,143,116,41,52,219],"tags":[1,3,89,225,2],"class_list":["post-354","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-abortion","category-adoration","category-apostles","category-charismatic","category-christian-life","category-christian-living","category-contemplation","category-conversion","category-new-life","tag-catholic","tag-catholic-christian","tag-catholic-deacon-keith-fournier","tag-conversion","tag-freedom"],"yoast_head":"\nI am Glad to Be Back at Beliefnet: It is Time to Begin Again - Catholic by Choice<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"noindex, nofollow\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"I am Glad to Be Back at Beliefnet: It is Time to Begin Again - Catholic by Choice\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"I have not written a column for Beliefnet in a long time. 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He is a widely recognized voice in the Catholic and broader Christian community. He is a member of the Clergy of the Diocese of Richmond, Virginia. In his fifteenth year of service as an ordained Catholic Deacon, he is currently assigned to St Stephen Martyr Parish in Chesapeake, Virginia. He is also authorized to serve the Liturgy of the Greek Byzantine Melkite Catholic Church. Deacon Fournier and his wife Laurine have been married for 34 years and have five grown children and six grandchildren. Deacon Fournier holds his Bachelors degree in theology and philosophy from the Franciscan University of Steubenville (BA), his Masters Degree in Marriage and Family Theology from the John Paul II Institute of the Lateran University (MTS), his Juris Doctor Law Degree Law (JD) from the University of Pittsburgh School of Law and is a PhD candidate in Moral Theology at the Catholic University of America where he is currently writing his Doctoral Dissertation. Deacon Fournier also holds two honorary Doctorates, a Doctor of Laws (L.L.D. 1994,Honoris Causa) from St. Thomas University - Given for pro-life legal contributions, and a Doctor of Divinity Degree (D.D. 2005, Honoris Causa ) from the National Clergy Council and the Methodist Episcopal Church for his contributions to authentic ecumenical efforts toward Christian unity. Attorney Fournier is a constitutional lawyer who appeared as co-counsel in cases before the United States Supreme Court on Pro-Life, Religious Freedom and Pro-family issues. He served as the first Executive Director of the American Center for Law and Justice for seven years. He then served as a public policy activist for the causes of life, marriage and family issues for a number of years. He has extensive experience in nonprofit and for profit leadership. He has taught at the College level and served in Academic administration. He was a Dean of Students and the Dean of Evangelization at the Franciscan University of Steubenville in Steubenville, Ohio. Deacon Fournier is, above all, a communicator. His faith informs his passion to share the fullness of life which he has found in the heart of the Catholic Church. He has written eight books on matters of faith, family and the Christian life and is widely published in the broader Christian community on matters of life, faith, family, and cultural and social issues. He hosted two daily national radio programs, Purpose for Living, and Millennial Moment. He hosted several television series on Christian family and contemporary faith issues on EWTN (Eternal Word Television Network). He is actively involved in preaching and teaching in the Catholic Church and the broader Christian community. In addition to serving as the Editor in Chief of Catholic Online, Deacon Fournier is the John Paul II Fellow and special counsel for the National Pro-Life Center in Washington, D.C. and is the president of Third Millennium, LLC, a communications and consulting company. He views his role on Beliefnet as an opportunity to share his Catholic Christian faith in what he calls a new areopagus. The areopagus is referred to in the 17th Chapter of the Acts of the Apostles in the Christian New Testament. Also called Mars Hill it was there where the Apostle Paul shared the Christian faith with the early Greeks in their temple.","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/catholicbychoice\/author\/deaconfournier"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/catholicbychoice\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/354","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/catholicbychoice\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/catholicbychoice\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/catholicbychoice\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/91"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/catholicbychoice\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=354"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/catholicbychoice\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/354\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":359,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/catholicbychoice\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/354\/revisions\/359"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/catholicbychoice\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=354"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/catholicbychoice\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=354"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/catholicbychoice\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=354"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}