A Goal for 2024

I’m not usually a big New Year’s resolution person, though I do love the transition from one year to the next.

This year, as we were saying goodbye to 2023, I saw friends sharing how many books they had read during the year and setting new goals for 2024. My husband mentioned talking with someone who had met his 2023 goal of spending 100 hours out on his boat. I loved that idea, and I found myself wondering what I might do 100 times.

Vacuum the house? I’d never hit my goal.

Load the dishwasher? That probably happens 100 times a month.

Then I thought of going to Mass. I should be able to get to 100 Masses over the next 12 months.

If I don’t miss a Sunday due to illness, I make it to 52 a year. Add a few holy days and the occasional daily Mass, and 100 seemed to be within reach.

Do I normally make it to 100 Masses in a year? I don’t know. I might. I’ve never counted. And even though I try to be more of a quality-over-quantity person, I was drawn to the idea of keeping track to see when I might hit my goal.

Besides, my Word of the Year is “recalibrate,” which is a funny word for me since I’m not generally much for calibrations in the first place, never mind recalibrations. But I found myself thinking that maybe there was something to the idea of setting a goal and trying to hit it.

Going to daily Mass is a treat for me, and a little bit of an escape from a busy day. At the same time, it’s easy for me to decide I’m too busy to go.

In these first weeks of January, I have made it to Mass 12 times. Numerically, that doesn’t sound that extraordinary. But I can’t believe how special it has been to be at each Mass. I’ve run into friends in the pews, hugging people I thought were out of town, hearing their intentions, and promising to pray with and for them. I’ve had such wonderful conversations.

I’ve also had the chance to take others’ intentions to Mass with me and to realize that others came to mind—as they always do—while I was in the pew.

Every single Mass, I feel like God and I have this inside joke that I’m there just to circle another day on the calendar. Of course, Mass is never ordinary, and there is much more to discover in that sacred space than me chalking up one more on the wall.

I also have had this beautiful sense that God wants me to be there, and that He has some need for me to be present that I cannot fathom on my own. Somehow Mass seems to be where I should be.

This week I learned that Pope Francis has designated 2024 as a Year of Prayer.

“From now on I am happy to think that the year preceding the Jubilee event, 2024, will be dedicated to a great ‘symphony’ of prayer,” Pope Francis said. “First of all, to recover the desire to be in the presence of the Lord, to listen to him and adore him.”

A symphony of prayer! Isn’t that beautiful? I wonder what notes God might like each of us to play in the days and weeks ahead.

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