Fulton Sheen’s Advice for Beginning a New Year, by Derek Rotty

By Derek Rotty, Catholic Exchange, Jan. 12, 2022

Derek Rotty is a husband, father, historian, theologian, & Director of Evangelization & Discipleship at St. Mary’s Catholic Church in Jackson, TN. His first book, A Life of Conversion: Meeting Christ in the Gospels, is available from Our Sunday Visitor Press. Follow his other ruminations at www.derekrotty.com.

We have just lived through the end of 2021 and the very beginning of 2022. Most of us have probably participated in annual festivities, including soirees with friends; worn glamorous new outfits and perhaps funny hats and glasses; and lifted champagne toasts at midnight on New Year’s Eve. Yet, America’s great pastor, Ven. Fulton Sheen gives us quite a bit more to think about as we make and live up to our annual resolutions proceeding through January. We would do well to ponder the truth that he conveys to us.

During his career as a clergyman and media personality, Sheen wrote a couple of articles about the ways we should think about the passage of one year to the next. At one point in his writing, Sheen echoed the very same concept that we have heard from pop psychologists and broadcasters of New Year’s Eve festivities.  …