by James Tissot (1836–1902)
I’m not a fan of new year’s resolutions. I’ve ranted about that in previous new year’s posts (when I’ve remembered to post on the first of the year). Mostly, I just feel like I set myself up for a list of things I wish I could get right, but have little motivation to follow through with for some measure of success.
That doesn’t mean I don’t have goals or dreams or anything like that, it’s just that I’d rather not enumerate them here at the beginning of the year. I mean, I have the same goals I had on December 27th, so talking about it today won’t make them magically happen. Staying on task will make them happen.
Instead, I jumped over to Jennifer Fulwiler’s blog where she has a neat Saint generator. You click on the link and voilà, there’s a saint that pops up randomly for you. I thought it’d be a nice challenge for 2013 to read more about whatever saint popped up for me.
It’s not a magical thing, for heaven’s sake … just a very clever (and easy, I might add) way to get to know the saints.
I went over there today, prayed a little that I might see something in this saint that will make me a better person…you know, a bettter Christian, and then I hit the button.
Bam! I got St. Luke.
My initial response was…whaaat? Not in disappointment, it was just a little bit of a double take. I thought I knew St. Luke. This will be a nice year to get to know him better.
Ahh, one of my favorite writers! I just finished reading BXVI’s book on the infancy narratives, where he talks about how Luke writes so lovingly about Mary who ponders all in her heart, because she likely told him these things. That, and important stuff like the Annunciation. He also wrote the Acts of the Apostles. So, there’s a two NT books to start the new year off right!