goals

Somewhere along the way, I stopped making goals. New Year's is the usual time to make new goals, but I don't tend to do that. Nor do I do so on my birthday or the First Sunday of Advent.

I stopped making goals.

Sure, I contemplate a theme for the year. Last year I wanted a year of "little things," as I wrote in my journal. I was coming off a year of Big Things and needed something manageable. So I decided to join the monastery and then not to. Yeah, that was my idea of little.

I didn't dare the universe this year.

On October 11, we marked the fiftieth anniversary of the opening of the Second Vatican Council. This is an exciting and important event to remember, to contemplate, to celebrate. Vatican II was one of the most important events of the church—ever. The Catholic Church was opened wide to the world, encouraged to engage it and be engaged by it. I have only ever known the postconciliar church, and I am grateful for the men and women who labored to bring it about.

I recognize the importance of Vatican II, but I am lamentably ignorant of its documents. I've read them, but I haven't read them. I know that I should honor John XXIII, the pope who convened the council, but the respect I have for him is distant. I am aware and in awe of the phenomenal minds that gathered to discuss and change our church, but I can't tell you who contributed what and why it matters.

You may be wondering how I ever graduated with a master's degree. Sometimes I wonder the same thing. Not because the program was deficient (it wasn't) or because I failed to do good, solid work (I didn't). Rather, this church is big, and despite the importance of Vatican II, that wasn't my focus. It was the backdrop for my work instead of the main subject. I was able to study interreligious dialogue, liturgy, and Scripture because of what happened at the council and in the years leading up to it.

But what on earth does this have to do with goals? As I've thought about the council, I've pondered the ways in which I want to celebrate it. As a postconciliar Catholic, I think it's important to read the documents, to pray with John XXIII's Journal of a Soul, to dive in to books by and about the participants of the council.

These are the goals I have for the anniversary years of Vatican II.

I hope to share with you some of what I learn. And I hope, when my birthday rolls around in a few months, that I'll have another list of goals—less theological perhaps, but no less transformative—to share with you.