8 Ideas for your New Year's Resolution

1. Communication

By Megan James

I was recently talking to my friend about resolutions for 2017 when she said to me “I am just thinking; what can I do for others? What can I do for God? And what can I do for myself?” This really made me think. In 2017, what change can I make that will improve my relationship with God, with others, and with myself?

The answer I came up with is communication. I know this is the area I can fall down in sometimes, especially when life isn’t going so peachy (which is when communication is key.) I know that I find it so hard to open up about those tough areas of my life, and this can cause a huge block in my prayer life, and also my personal life.

So, in 2017 my aim is to not shut down when life goes slightly array. Instead, I will communicate. I will not push God and my loved ones away, but instead I will seek them. And just as importantly, I will keep checking in with myself. I have learnt, I can only be honest with God and with others if I am firstly honest with myself. So, through taking time for myself, taking time for real contemplation and prayer, and taking time to be with those I love, 2017 will hopefully be a year of openness, honestly, and vulnerability, because as St Paul so beautifully tells us in 2 Corinthians 12:9-10 ‘For when I am weak, I am strong.’

2. Living Realistically

By Eleanor Hill

I'm going to be honest, I'm seriously rubbish and sticking to New Years resolutions. My diet usually lasts a week, my 'give time for yourself' lasts up until February where life gets busy again and although the intention is there , my 'go to mass,adoration and confession more' kinda fizzles out when I forget why I wanted to do that in the first place.

So this year my resolution is to be more realistic, to be more conscious of my surroundings and to not put pressure on myself. Of course I'm not going to run a marathon, drink 2 litres of water a day, improve my prayer life by an hour and get 8 hours sleep. Instead I'm going to each week make realistic little changes, for example strive to go to adoration just once a week, to go for a walk every so often and to listen to a podcast one morning every so often.

I'm going to strive to make little changes that will have big repercussions, to let God work through my little promises, and most importantly to rest in him more, rather than getting myself stressed running towards Him.

3. Daily Mass

By Gina  Geffers

When I lived in a chaplaincy, it was easy peasy for me to get to daily mass, as my room was right above the chapel. I essentially felt bad if I was around and didn’t go. Since I’ve moved cities and houses, daily mass has been non-existent for me, unfortunately. I’ve decided to make this my New Year’s resolution and recommend it for anyone who is (or even isn’t) struggling with their faith or mass visits. 

After having spent a while coming up with decent New Year’s resolutions that would be feasible, I figured that going to daily mass at least twice a week is something that I could do because…it’s a thing I can do. Physically speaking. While I have periods in which praying seems abstract, rather than trying to go out searching by myself, I can just move myself to church, sit and listen and be overwhelmed by Christ

4. Healthy body : healthy soul

By Sarah Morton

This time last year, I was 5 months away from my wedding, and like so many other brides to be, my New Years resolution was to lose weight. Except, healthy eating wasn't really my thing. So I skipped meals, drank more tea and coffee, and took some gym classes instead. My wedding happened, my dress fit perfectly, and my husband and I started to eat whatever the heck we wanted again. Admittedly, we bought a nutri bullet with all the right intentions, but we got comfortable, and we got lazy. The food we were putting into our body wasn't able to fuel us enough to carry out our jobs, to maintain our home or to socialise with people. Then winter colds and chest infections struck and our bodies haven't been able to heal and repair as they should have been. 

As Catholics, we believe our earthly bodies weren't simply created by God, but they're actually temples of the Holy Spirit where God himself dwells inside us! (1 Cor 16:19-20 and 3:16-17) It's easy to fall into the trap of the latest diet fad or exercise class, but taking care of our bodies is actually something we are called to do by God. That's why this year, I'm not necessarily trying to lose weight, but fueling my body properly will hopefully give me the energy I need to carry out my job happily, spend time with friends and family, and actually devote time to hobbies; activities which in turn help to fuel my soul, which leads me closer to God, which makes me a much happier person in general!

"Beloved, I pray that all may go well with you and that you may be in good health,

as it goes well with your soul." 

3 John 1:2

5. Creating time for Prayer

By Eve Hirst

In 2017 I am aiming to try and give more deliberate time to Jesus in prayer. Often I find life can be so busy rushing here and there that the only time I find to pray is when I’m on the move. And often it’s only when I remember that there is something that really needs praying for! 

But advent has been a good opportunity to try and reflect on the present moment, day by day, and this would be great to try to take through to the New Year. Taking deliberate time out to sit with Jesus and update him on the seemingly mundane things of my day, like I would do with a friend, is time very well invested into my friendship with my wonderful Father in heaven.

6. Getting up!

By Ben Hince

Ok, so here’s my New Year resolution for 2017: Wake up when my alarm goes each day! Maybe it sounds simple, but for me, it often isn’t. I once heard that the holiest thing you can do in each moment is to be right where God wants you, and I’ve often tried to convince myself that that’s having an extra thirty minutes in bed… It isn't.

I’m a student, and so that means God wants me to be productive, and He wants me to be using my time responsibly. Actually, I'm a third year student, and so that means God wants me to be really productive, and really using my time responsibly!

The hope is that not only will this resolution make me more responsible in my work, but it will also help me in my Spiritual life – allowing more time each day for prayer and for journeying with God.

7. Giving Time

By Isaac Withers

On my university I.D., alongside a photo of me that I thought looked great at the time, are the years 2014-2017. I remember looking at them when I got that card through the mail and almost laughing at how far away 2017 felt. So, suffice to say I'm doing some rethinking right now. 

Something I've been doing since September, has been to actively try to be around people as much as I can, people I won't see after this phase of my life. Not waiting for a module to throw us together, or for us to bump into each other in a pub, to seek out the people, not assuming anything. I guess I've been trying to be generous with my time.

I was at a motorway service station Burger King yesterday after a lot of travel, and there was your typical young family at another table and I really got a deeper sense of this. I saw this dad, who'd been like me once, who was a lot like my Dad 20 years ago, and how life as it progresses really pushes us into giving more and more of our time to those around us. And I thought this should be the trajectory of my life, moving from self-satisfaction more and more to the service of others and God, giving my time when I have it. Besides, it's an arts degree, I've got a fair bit of free time to give...

8. Intentionality

By Emily Milne

New Year's calls for honesty! This year I want to be more intentional in my spiritual life. I've spent quite a long time doing things quite haphazardly - daily rosary when I remember, daily mass when I wake up on time, prayer 'when I can fit it in' etc. and while it has mostly worked for me, I've always felt that I wasn't really making my spiritual life the centre of my day - it has been more like an optional add on.

So this year I'm making goals, a plan for the week, and I'm going to try and be realistic about what I can achieve. It's all about creating a good habit (and working on overcoming my bad habits - like pressing snooze too often!). As St Jerome says, 'til your good is better and your better is best'.

Counting our Blessings : Youth 2000's 2016

Our World Youth Day Trip

By Maria Byrne, Youth 2000's World Youth Day group co-leader

What an incredible blessing it was for Youth 2000 UK to be present at this year’s World Youth Day in Krakow. Our group really experienced 'pilgrimage' in the truest sense. If you can spend over 24 hours on a coach with people you’ve just met, walk for 7 hours to sleep outside in a field just so you can celebrate mass with another couple million  young people (oh and Pope Francis), and persevere through multiple blisters, sunburn, tiredness and still come away saying with joy, “That was completely worth it”, you know there’s something more than what meets the eye. God was working in our hearts in those days and we came away changed in some way.

 

“World Youth Day for me was a week of spiritual reflection which I will never forget. One special memory I have was kneeling in the Divine Mercy Centre during the procession of the Blessed Sacrament and despite the hundreds of young people around, there was an indescribable sense of stillness and peace that touched me. I felt that I was recharging my faith by being with Youth 2000 and it ultimately reminded me of why I choose to remain close to Christ every day.”

-          Talissa, 18

“One of my favourite things about World Youth Day was the sense of unity and friendship I felt being surrounded by people from every corner of the world, all gathered in Krakow. The moment that best represents this and something which is a highlight of the whole experience for me was when during the Saturday night vigil Pope Francis asked everyone to join together for a few minutes of silence by holding hands - it was such a powerful moment to be a part of.”

-Sophie, 19

"As ordinary as it may sound, the highlight of my World Youth Day experience was walking through the door of mercy at the Divine Mercy Sanctuary, it truly felt like God's mercy was flowing abundantly upon me and I was overwhelmed with emotions. And of course not to forget being a part of the millions of young Catholics from all over the globe reminding the world that the young Catholic Church is alive and buzzing!"

-Tanisha, 19

The Mercy Tour

By John Withers, Youth 2000 Regional Development coordinator and Mercy Tour manager

The Mercy Tour began with the finest Chinese takeaway Gainsborough had to offer. It was a gift shared between friends, and as often happens, between all the laughter, the meal was a melting pot of great conversation filled with courageous and passionate visions of what God might be asking of us. We arrived at a two week, non-stop tour of churches and cathedrals in 12 cities across the UK, with the goal of providing a clear opportunity for young people to respond to the call to mission with generous hearts in the Year of Mercy. It was ‘wild and reckless’, and exactly what God was asking of us.

Fast-forward five short months and 21 young missionaries were in the thick of one intense timetable, harking back to the days of the old Youth 2000 mission team. Driving up to 300 miles in a morning, we would then hit the streets in the afternoon to talk and pray with strangers, and to invite them to that night’s ‘Mercy Evening’, a candle lit service that took the best bits of Youth 2000’s Eucharist-centred reconciliation service and crossed it with the openness of a Nightfever.

My experience of faith as a young man has been that the call to mission (see Matthew 28:18-20) has driven my desire for holiness, the more I give the more I want and need to receive, and it was beautiful to see this lived out in the hearts of the young missionaries on the tour. They poured themselves out in their conversations on the streets, heart speaking unto heart, and their generosity of spirit was often returned to them, people respond to generosity, they respond to love. The chains were off and each day we grew in boldness, our target for evangelisation snowballed astronomically from inviting people to light a candle, to asking what we could pray for, to praying for people right there and then. We really desired to love and meet people where they were, to walk and talk with them, to make prayer here and now.

Thousands lit candles, hundreds prayed with us, many stepped into a church for the first time and we continue to pray for all of them. We are also immensely grateful to every diocese that hosted us on our way and to both the Basilica of Our Lady of Walsingham and the Guild of Our Lady of Ransom who partnered with Youth 2000 in providing much of the funding for The Mercy Tour.

The Youth 2000 Blog

By Isaac Withers, Youth 2000 Blog Editor

Well this is pretty meta - the blog writing about the blog...

A absolute fruit of The Mercy Tour with the little time we had in between van-packing, the blog has been a really great venture. We're at post 20 as you read this and our ever-expanding team of writers show no sign of slowing down. I think it's been a gift on two fronts. 

Firstly, as a writing experience. The conversations you can have at a Youth 2000 retreat are so rare in how fun and deep and wide-ranging they can be. As soon as we started blogging, I knew I could fall back on some seriously good friends, to put these conversations we were having about uni and life and faith and films and everything, out there for people to see. It's been a joy to help other young people express their causes and struggles and I know for all of us, publishing these parts of our faith journeys has been really cathartic.

And then the second side of it is you guys, the readers. It's been so fun to bump into random friends who anonymously read something, who'd then talk to you about it. Or people who've forwarded blogs along to their friends who are struggling. And it's been amazing to see the unity it has been able to achieve across church divides and denominations, as Catholics from other movements get involved, or my friends from the CU or Methodist friends read. And of course, just telling stories about Jesus would do that, so we'll keep it up.

P.S. should you want to write for us, we're literally just an e-mail away.

Conquerors : The biggest Walsingham Festival yet

By Christina Lynas, National Director of Youth 2000

Wow, just wow! Four months on and as I think back on Conquerors I still feel AWE in my heart!

It would be easy for me to talk numbers, to say how many people God drew to the festival, with people spilling out of the big top. It really was bigger than ever. It was such a gift from God, to have so many of his children together, with Him, face to face, hearts, souls, lives, being changed forever! These blessings are so intimate, so personal, so hidden, that often it is only God who truly sees the beauty of the change within. So I would like to share the hidden blessing I received at Conquerors, with you.

I encountered God’s love.

It was warm and comforting and energising... and it tasted like coffee!

Let me explain. I love coffee… but it wasn’t in the coffee that I encountered His love, it was in the warm smiles of numerous friends who brought me coffee while they were just as busy as me. It was in the sacrificial serving of my friend. As they manned the cross roads and told me to go back to the big top and spend time with Jesus, it was in the smiles from the kitchen team as they told me they had it all under control, it was in the love of countless team members who kept smiling and laughing as they stacked chairs, picked up litter, made announcements, cleaned toilets, looked after the sick, made yet another sandwich and sang their hearts out! It was in the hundreds of these 'little acts of love' that I saw the beauty of God’s heart once more.

It was a complete privilege to serve with people who love God and loved me, in all my imperfectness. Thank you guys and thank you God!

We Believe : the Music Ministry album

By Edward Morton, 'We Believe' co-producer

It was about April when we got the green light for this album, on a day when John and Leo (two music ministry members) were at my house. I immediately called up the studio and booked us in for the next day to start the recording process. After months of discussing this album it was finally becoming a reality.

It’s still all a bit of a blur. That first day, we gave trusty Tom Sellers a call and like a flash he appeared at the studio with a car full of guitars amps, violins and every other piece of gear you could imagine. We bundled it up the narrow staircase into the dark but ambient light of dB Studios where our old friend and my co-producer Sim was there to welcome us. After three crazy days, a night tracking drums with Fred and so, so much coffee we had the bones of and 8 track album. Next, Fr Chris dropped by and, in one take, nailed his songs. There are a few more stories, one including John Withers recording vocals in his underwear, John Watts & Crick driving up from Brighton for the day just to lay some vocals, Isaac arriving after being up all night revising for his exams. There were a few more hardships too but there was a lot of Joy.

It was then time for me to retreat with Sim to flesh the bones out. It was a really daunting time as my personal life seemed to be falling down around me. Progress was slow and sometimes it was so hard to find the sense of spirit of the album when my own heart was all over place, but I knew it had to be a narrative of hope. I find that when the inspiration isn’t there, that that is just when you need work harder. Sometimes you just need to graft for the Lord, with the thankless grind of long hours that become prayer. Throughout, I was reminded to at all times trust in the Lord and his plan, to work as a team, to forgive swiftly, to act kindly, and, ultimately, to be loving.

Moving to Walsingham

By Nicky Lynas, Youth 2000's Walsingham Development coordinator

“For I am about to do something new. See, I have already begun!” Isaiah 43:19

So we finally landed in Walsingham, boxes unpacked, new shelves built & Our Lady in pride of place. What an incredible blessing it is for Youth 2000 to be based in Walsingham! It is the quiet season now, God is easing us in, only a few bus load of pilgrims a week, but already we are seeing the beginnings of God’s plan for us here. We have been able to share with the pilgrims the work of Youth 2000 and ask for their support & prayers. It’s amazing to be so near to the foundations of the replica of the Holy House requested by Our Lady to be built here. Each week we become more aware of the grace that is present here in this Holy Place set apart by God. We can’t wait for you to visit us here! 

***

From all of us at Youth 2000, a huge thank you for your prayers and support in 2016!

Have a Merry Christmas, and if we don't see you at Greater Things, have a blessed new year too.

The Holy Family : A Lesson in Humility

By Megan James

For Advent this year, instead of my usual Dairy Milk Advent calendar, I opted for a snazzy Nativity themed one. So, every morning, when I open the door of this calendar, not only do I get chocolate for breakfast, but I also get given a line from the Nativity story. Yup, it’s prayerful and delicious. Win.

                Now, my Advent calendar is essentially made for children, so its basic outline of the Christmas story doesn’t do the Nativity all that much justice, after all, it’s hard to capture the beauty of a miracle on a small cardboard window. But, what the simplicity of its narration has made me realise is this: the Nativity story is not really simple or child-like.

We all too often recall the Nativity in this beautiful, but basic, story-like sense. I know I do. It’s easy to do, especially since it’s been a part of how many of us have been raised. For me, the Nativity was acted out on stage every year at school and in church. The Nativity was read to me like a bedtime story by my grandmother from my Marks and Spencer ‘First Bible’ that had adorable illustrations and a gold spine (that I thought was beyond fancy). The Nativity has almost become romanticised to the point where I can forget just how truly incredible it is, and how hard it must have been to live through.

Mary

            When looking at the picturesque Nativity scenes full of serene faces gathered around a cute little manger, it’s so easy to forget the reality. It’s easy to forget that those parents looking down at our Emmanuel were once people just like you and me. It’s easy to forget how much they had to give up.

It’s easy to forget that Mary was probably quite a bit younger than many of us. That this young girl was approached by an angel and told, despite her being an unmarried virgin, she was going to give birth to the Son of God. Not just a baby, no (as though that wouldn’t be terrifying enough). No, she was going to give birth to God himself. And what we often forget is that after that bombshell was dropped, the angel vanished and Mary was left to go through 9 months of watching her body change, not really knowing what was going to happen to her. But she did it, no questions asked. She fearlessly and humbly said yes; casting her own ideas and anxieties to the side, fully embracing His will over her own. That amazes me.

‘Behold, I am the handmaiden of the Lord.

May it be done according to your word.’

Luke 1:38

Joseph

                But it wasn’t just Mary who showed this incredible level of humility. Joseph also would have had his own plans; I mean, I’m pretty sure helping raise the Son of God was a bit more than he thought he was signing up for when he asked Mary to marry him. But when an angel appeared to him in a dream and told him to stay with Mary, as unconventional and dangerous as it  was in their society to be unmarried and expecting a child, Joseph went against his original instinct to leave, and said yes to God.

‘When Joseph awoke, 

he did as the angel of the Lord had commanded him 

and took his wife into his home.’ 

Matthew 1:24

                Both Mary and Joseph did what I find so hard to do today; they both laid down their lives for God; their hopes, their dreams, their futures. They literally let Him into their home. They understood the real power of humility; they knew that the humble would be exalted, that the meek would be rewarded, or in words their son would speak years later:

'Blessed are the humble, for they will inherit the earth.'

Matthew 5:5

They knew that when they said yes, God would not leave them empty handed. They didn’t try to bargain with God, they didn’t say to the angel, 'Maybe we can meet half way?’ No. They just said yes. And God provided a way for them. This level of humility and surrender is something we should all strive for.

‘Humble yourself before the Lord and He will lift you up’ 

James 4:10

Jesus

             But if Mary and Joseph show us human humility, Jesus, from his first moment, show's us the humility of God.  As we admire the quaint Nativity scene this Christmas and look upon the peaceful baby asleep in the crib, we shouldn’t forget that God could have chosen to come to us in any form; He could have come mightily as a tremendous force of nature. He could have come as anything. But God chose the humblest form and the most modest of beginnings. He chose to draw near to us defenceless and dependent on human parents.

              It was the furthest thing from what was expected of the arrival of the messiah. But that is what our God chose. Humility, humanity, and reality. He chose to come down to us and to struggle, suffer, and live, with us. He didn’t see himself as better than any of it. That is humility.

‘For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, 

that though He was rich, yet for your sake He became poor, 

so that you through His poverty might become rich.’

2 Corinthians 8:9

                So, the next time I question God’s plan for my life, the next time I feel impatient waiting for answers, or I feel hard done by, or neglected by God, I will remember the Holy Family. I will remember their humility. I will remember to surrender my plans and to humble myself. If Mary could say yes, if Joseph could say yes, and if God could come down as a baby and lie in the dirt for me, then who am I to think I am above anything life throws at me? Who am I to cling stubbornly to the idea of the life that I want? I am a humble child of God, and I want to move my heart to be ready to say yes to Him whenever he calls.

‘But rather, He emptied Himself, 

taking the form of a slave, coming in human likeness.’

Philippians 2:7

'I literally can't wait' : Living in a Culture of Distraction

By Isaac Withers

I was hoping you’d read the quote of the title in the accent of a Californian girl. ‘Literally’… 

But anyway, we’re waiting for Jesus right now (Advent etc.), and some people really aren't good at waiting for Christmas. They like, literally, just can't even...

However, before we celebrate the arrival of Jesus, I thought I’d take this time introduce you to my Nokia. It’s a beaut.

It’s white. It has snake. It's a stone cold classic.

It’s the replacement of two previous ‘brick phones’ as they’re affectionately known and it gets reactions (not the good type). The question across seminar tables of, ‘is that really your phone?’ One of my personal favourites was this, ‘O, I’ve got that phone too! It’s for when I go inter-railing, in case I get mugged.’ That one hurt a little.

Every now and again, a friend in horror, will just outright offer to replace it when they get an upgrade, and I have to think seriously about why I choose this rubbish, muggable phone. The truth is, I've always spent way too much time on Facebook, and I hate the idea of having it on me all the time.

So being smartphoneless, means that when I get on trains for a few hours, or go on retreat, or leave the country for a week, or find myself without wifi, I really am pretty disconnected, I have few options to distract myself with. And I love it. It’s given my life space. Hours of it.

I came across a Youtube video a while ago, where one of the biggest comedians in America, Louis C.K., was explaining why he didn’t want to get his kids phones yet. He got pretty deep.

‘The thing is, you need to build an ability to just be yourself and not be doing anything,

that’s what phones are taking away.

Is the ability to just sit there.

That’s being a person, right?’

Now to clarify, I’m not anti-smart phone, I’m just pro the practice of waiting. That’s gotta be what Advent is. A time to get used to the long waits of life. A friend of mine passed me a Dr. Seus book a few weeks ago and demanded I read it. I’d never read him before (he’s the writer of The Grinch), and again, I was not expecting the profound, especially from a kids book. It spoke of ‘the waiting place’, and it reads:

‘… for people just waiting.

Waiting for a train to go

or a bus to come, or a plane to go

or the mail to come, or the rain to go

or the phone to ring, or the snow to snow

or waiting around for a yes or a no,

or waiting for their hair to grow.

Everyone is just waiting.’

And the book shows you that it looks like this:

And as sad/strange as that looks, it speaks to my frequent reality. Waiting has always been uncomfortable. It’s anticipation, it’s frustrating. It’s like messaging the person you really like, putting it all out there and receiving ‘Seen at 17:13’. And just staring at that for as long as it’s there. That’s horrible. Waiting never really feels like ‘life to the full’, and yet it’s given to us a lot. What do we do with it?

The good doctor continues in the book:

‘Whether you like it or not,

Alone will be something

you’ll be quite a lot.’

I found myself at a retreat last weekend, and I was hit by something totally new, about the nearness of God. It’s what we’re expecting now, it’s what we celebrate at Christmas: the Emmanuel, the God-with-us. One of the speakers said simply, when Jesus left the earth, he said leaving us with the Holy Spirit was better, than him being physically here. The Holy Spirit dwelling within his disciples, the baptized, us, is the reality.

‘Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you,

whom you have received from God? You are not your own.’

1 Corinthians 6:19

He chooses to dwell in me always. Not only when I ask him to be with me, or when I’m spiritually feeling ok, but always. He is with me in the waiting place too. But I can forget that if I’m distracted. When I’m living every journey with earphones in, and every reception sofa moment by checking a profile. And this might sound dumb, but I’ve never sought out prayer with as much urgency as I have Wifi. That sounds like a fun line, but it’s actually true. Something in me needs to change.

Taking moments to live with the Emmanuel, to sit with him, is what we’re called to. The biggest thing that uni life has taught me these past few years, is that friendships come down to something very real and quantifiable: time. Spending weekly/daily time with people, has made me a better friend to them. Setting time apart, solidifies relationships.

So give him your waiting. Replace scrolling through the Facebook void with personal prayer. Give him your boredom, because that’s quality time. Give him your advent anticipation. Because we really can wait, and we’ve got the best company to share our waiting with.