New Year: Coming Home to My-self

Rev. Tat-Thang Hoang C.Ss.R.

Standing before his parents, the oldest child of all siblings says, “Mom and Dad, on behalf of all my siblings, we wish you a wonderful New Year with peace, health, and abundant grace of God. If we had done something made you sad and disappointed, please forgive all our mistakes, and continue helping us to become better children.”

The above image is our tradition of Vietnamese New Year (Tet). Every New Year celebration, we Vietnamese usually come back to our country or homes to gather together with our families to wish one another the best wishes for a new year. Beside that, we need to reevaluate ourselves of how we had done in the past that sometimes created sadness and disappointments toward our grandparents, parents and one another. We need to apologize, forget and forgive all the mistakes of the past in order to move forward toward the future. We call “Coming Home to My-self”.

‘The home of my-self’ has many rooms: physical-life room, social-life room, psychological-life room, family-life room, service-life room, and spiritual-life room. We all need to come back to our own ‘home of our-selves’. We are so distracted by many things or projects that we forsake and care for all the rooms. We have to ask our-selves questions such as: Who/where are we? What do we have in our homes? Are there any rooms of our lives needed to be fixed or guided to become more livable or peaceful? We need to forgive each other more wholeheartedly. We need to respect each other more understandably. And we need to love each other more generously.

We all are called to become gifts and spiritual nourishments for one another.

Challenges:
1. What can you do to help others to live a better life?
2. Who is the owner of your-self home? Money? Sex? Fame? Jealousy?

New Year is coming to the corner, what do you plan to do for the most abandoned: poor, addicted, sick, and homeless?

Song: Today is New Day

Tune: Morning Has Broken by Gregory Murray, OSB.
Text Ascr. To Vietnamese Lunar New Year (2005). Adapted by Tatthang Hoang, C.Ss.R.

Website: www.redemptorists-denver.org

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