I don’t mean to be picky, but didn’t we just do this? Advent, I mean. Surely it hasn’t been a whole year … is that possible?

A popular song in 1976 called “Fly Like an Eagle,” by the Steve Miller Band, had an often-repeated section:

            Time keeps on slippin’, slippin’, slippin’
            into the future … ”

It occurs to me that it applies to our best intentions—all the good, worthy things that we were going to do as the Church began its new liturgical year last Advent a year ago. We were going to get organized, be kind, improve ourselves and our choirs, learn new stuff, find better ways of dealing with stress (and difficult people), etc., etc.

Did we get it all done? In a word, no.

But today begins another new year, a different new year. The future we’ve been slipping into is today. We get a do-over—how great is that?

The antiphon of Psalm 80, today’s Responsorial Psalm, calls out, “Lord, make us turn to you; let us see your face and we shall be saved.” And verse 19 promises, “give us new life, and we will call upon your name.”

Don’t let the good stuff slip away by trying to do too much. Find one or two songs that during the whole season can really speak to the heart of Advent—not penitential but hope-filled, grounded in God’s promise and God’s unfathomable mercy.