A word and a saint for your New Year

What are your goals for 2021?

I’m mainly focused on survival. If I can manage that while successfully navigating remote schooling, eating and sleeping better, getting more exercise, reading more, staying ahead of the dirty dishes, and showing exceptional patience and grace, that would be amazing. Maybe I’ll learn to juggle, perfect the art of making chocolate mousse, or write a book or two. Or maybe not.

Being realistic and keeping expectations low seems appropriate. So, I am not making any specific New Year’s resolutions. But I love going to Catholic author and standup comic Jennifer Fulwiler’s sites, which generate an inspirational word of the year and a saint of the year just for you.

I’ve done this for the past few years, and I love that my word and saint choose me randomly.

Looking back on 2020

For 2020, my word was “Open,” which felt full of promise and possibility way back when. As I look back on a year in which so much was not open, or not open to me, I find that word choice a bit ironic. But looking back on the year, I wonder whether God was suggesting that I needed to be open to the experiences that would come my way, even as so many restrictions went into place.

My word of the year for 2021 is: Spirited.

It sounds like a positive word, a word with vitality and excitement. It also makes me think of the Holy Spirit, and I wonder whether I’ll be turning to the Holy Spirit in special ways this year. “Spirited” also makes me think of my sons and our feisty little finches, who leap and fly around the cage with such energy.

My saint of the year for 2021 is St. Agatha. I’m not seeing an obvious reason for me to turn to her this year, but she’s a fascinating saint and one I didn’t know well. I look forward to getting to know her better this year.

Our older son got “Teach” as his word and Blessed Bernard Scammacca as his saint, and our younger son has “Music” and St. Ambrose of Milan. We had a wonderful time getting to know a little more about these holy men whose names popped up for them through the generator.

Now it’s your turn

If you’d like to try it for yourself, you can find your word of the year here, and you can find your saint of the year here.

You can also choose your own words or saints—or none at all. Whatever approach you take to the New Year, I hope it will be a blessed one for you and those you love.

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