January is not most folks favorite time of year but for me there is something about January I like. I rank January as my 2nd or 3rd favorite month of the year. And not everything about January is easy; January does present some challenges. But what I really like about the first month of the New Year are things most of us don't realize. First and foremost, January is an integral part of the Christmas season. In terms of the Catholic faith, we extend Christmas until we celebrate the Feast of the Baptism of the Lord. This feastday can fall as early as the 9th and as late as the 14th. Catholics, and even other Christian denominations celebrate Christmas at least until the old traditional Feast Day of the Epiphany, January 6th. And speaking of the 6th, since I live in the New Orleans area, that date is also the beginning of the Mardi Gras season. Parties, eating king cake and Mardi Gras balls are well underway.
I think January may have supplanted November as my 2nd favorite month(December is my all time favorite month) in 2010 when all of us down here rode the wave of the Saints magical playoff run that ended with winning Super Bowl 44. Well, January has not been quite as kind since then, although we enjoyed that big victory last week against the Lions before the 49'er heartbreaker. LSU football even extends into January quite often and usually with good results too. We won't mention this year.
January is that time when things get back to the normal routine. For me that means not only work but ministry as a Catholic Deacon. For example, all of a sudden I have lots of requests for baptisms, weddings, have already conducted a funeral service, not to mention returning to my routine at Rayburn Prison and the new projects we are working on at Most Holy Trinity. We just began a Catholicism Project, based on the remarkable series done by Fr. Robert Barron and we have begun an evangelization committee and will be doing Adoration for our PSR students and speaking to our soon to be confirmed 11th graders. But routine also returns at work and everyone is extremely fired up to reach new sales goals and hit bigger results than the year before. I've been to this rodeo a few dozen times in my life.
When our youngest daughter returned to graduate school after spending a month with us at home we knew that we are back to the normal. We even struggled to belatedly put all the decorations away for another year. And today, I enjoyed my annual day off in honor of Dr. Martin Luther King. Usually, once this day is over, I find that it truly is time to be back in the saddle because it will be a little while before another one of those special 3 day weekends.
So as January continues I look forward to all my wonderful and exciting opportunities in ministry, yes, even at work and will celebrate these remaining days of cooler weather and longer nights before we realize it's spring again and summer not far behind. Let's just celebrate and appreciate the present.
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