Adopting a “customer service” point of view this past Sunday, when I announced “Tuesday of this week, January 1st, is a Holy Day of Obligation” and then listed the times for the masses, I noticed a muted but audible moan rumbling through the congregation.  I guess the thought of having to go to church again on New Year’s Day was just a bit too much.  Perhaps those who moaned were expressing the belief of many others that making New Year’s Day a holy day of obligation “penalizes” Catholics.

From my own experience, I know very well the rationale and perhaps you’ve thought it yourselves or even have heard your kids say it: “Gosh, it’s freezing cold out there.”  What about this one: “Going to church is no problem for the priests.  They love mass and have to be there anyway.”  Or, “Heck, I’ve already gone to church three times in the past nine days alone.  This will make four times in ten days.  This better guarantee me a front-row seat in heaven!”

Undoubtedly, this holy day of obligation can seem like a penalty, especially if people don’t know and understand what this holy day is all about.  Maybe you feel like you’re sitting in the penalty box right now!

And so, to get some feedback about just what people in the congregation knew, I took an entirely unscientific poll of last Sunday’s church-going public.  As they left church, I asked some parishioners, “Why is New Year’s Day a holy day of obligation?”  Some responses revealed some really creative thinking.  Several parishioners opined: “It’s to get people to start the new year off on the right foot. You know, in sort of a holy way.”  In contrast, some others said: “It’s to make sure people don’t misbehave too much on New Year’s Eve. You know, it gets them home earlier than they otherwise would because they know they have to get up and go to church.”  But, the lion’s share of the church-going public polled—and especially the teenagers—said, “Uh, I don’t know.”

From a customer service point of view, if people don’t know what it is that they’re supposed to be celebrating, then what motive is there to celebrate, let alone to come to church to celebrate?  No wonder the lack of enthusiasm and “long faces” on so many people!  Or, could it be the residual hangover from too much partying last evening?

Today, I want to overview briefly why today is a holy day of obligation.  Anything longer than “brief” would be to “double penalize” you and I promise I won’t do that.  I can’t guarantee that my explanation will motivate you to love having to go to church on New Year’s Day.  But, I can guarantee at a minimum that you’ll leave knowing something you didn’t know when you came to church today.  At the least, next time you’re polled, you’ll have the correct answer.

The response several parishioners made about “starting off the New Year on the right foot…in a holy way” has much to do with New Year’s Day being the equivalent of a secular holy day of obligation.  Think about it: thousands of people gleefully celebrate the coming of the New Year.  They brave the cold and darkness to attend the “ball drop” at Times’ Square in New York or firework displays to be found in cities throughout the world.  They travel to participate in the Mummers and Rose Bowl Parades.  And, if watching the college football bowl games on television and grazing for hours at the hors d’oeuvres table isn’t an annual liturgy, then nothing is.

At the same time, New Year’s Day isn’t just another day on the calendar but marks new beginnings, a day for resolutions about daily life during the new year.  Taking a glance back at what has kept us from achieving the quality of life we would have liked to have experienced last year, many resolve to create conditions that will enable them to increase their quality of life.  Many people resolve to adopt more healthy lifestyles.  Some people resolve to improve career or leisure opportunities.  Other people resolve to engage in self-improvement.

If you examine this approach to New Years, it’s really a secular sacrament of penance as people examine their conscience, confess their sins, promise to do penance, and amend their lives…Amen.

But, that’s not why New Year’s Day is a holy day of obligation for Catholics.  In fact, this day was a holy day of obligation hundreds of years before the Gregorian calendar was instituted which made January 1st New Year’s Day as we know it.

For Catholics, New Year’s Day took place nearly six weeks ago on the first Sunday of Advent when we lit the first candle of the Advent wreath and opened the first door of the Advent calendar.  On that day, we resolved to prepare ourselves for the birth of God’s only begotten Son, not only some two thousand years ago in Bethlehem but also as God’s only begotten Son takes flesh today in our hearts, in our homes, and in our world.  That day was eight days ago and makes today the “octave” of Christmas.

For the past seven days, we have celebrated Christmas, focusing primarily upon the birth of Jesus Christ.  But, on this the eighth day—reminiscent of the eighth day of Creation when God rested—Catholics rest in order to contemplate the person who made all of this possible that what Mary’s faith really means and requires of us in our daily lives.

Mary was very young when the archangel Gabriel visited her, perhaps no more than fourteen years old.  Imagine the mystery, the doubt, and the fear Mary experienced by saying “Yes” to Gabriel. Imagine, too, the pain Mary’s “Yes” meant as she watched her son unfairly and unjustly executed.  Through all of this, Mary did not flinch but held to her abiding belief that everything coming her way was of God’s doing.  And, rather than demand explanations or blame God when things didn’t go quite the way Mary had hoped, instead she “treasured all of these things in her heart,” as today’s Gospel tells us.

For this reason, Catholics revere Mary as the “New Eve” and celebrate this holy day to honor her as “Mother of God.”  Mary’s generosity made it possible for you and for me to be made anew or, as St. Paul said in today’s epistle, to be blessed as “adopted children of God.”  No longer are we slaves to the power of sin and death, but co-heirs of God’s kingdom.

As Catholics, we pause and rest today—this octave of Christmas—to contemplate Mary, the Mother of God.  For many, today is nothing more than a secular holiday but, for Catholics, it is a holy day...and one of “obligation.”  It provides an opportunity to rest from all of the “busyness” of our daily lives and to contemplate them from the perspective of faith, especially the perspective illuminated by Mary’s unconditional “Yes” to God and her willingness to look at everything in her life as being of God’s doing.  Mary’s “Yes” to the archangel Gabriel’s troubling message made it possible for God to become human, to live among us, and to show us the pathway to the source of true and abiding peace and joy.