Welcome New Year's Day.  As 2021 closes its eyes in farewell, we are launching hopeful resolutions, resuming work and school schedules, and wrapping up Christmas memories.  Grateful gatherings of family and friends rebounded in 2021 compared to 2020, back when many if not most of us had to suspend plans as loved ones were separated in fear and loss from the COVID virus.  The option to celebrate went missing.

Celebrations are central to the fabric of our lives, identity, and spirit — so important, yet easily taken for granted.  One thing I learned from COVID is to stop taking things for granted.  Opportunities you always assumed would be there for you are not.  Before COVID, missing out was often a product of circumstances within your orbit, overlapping with "I can do that later" or "we will see you soon" rhetoric.  The pandemic snatched the decision-center wheel from our grasp, and kicked us to the side of the road.  It was shocking, frustrating, and painful.  Two weeks to flatten the curve turned into nearly a two-year roller coaster ride of capricious, authoritarian rule-making and control over our choices, customs, and liberties.  The worst part was when we realized that too much was surrendered for the benefit of power-hungry global elites and their minions and masters.  Their Marxist long game is to transform America by gutting the Constitution.

Those saving America must realize what those against America already know.  We become what we celebrate.  This is a message as powerful as it is concise.  I first read about this idea in Mathew Kelly's book Rediscover Catholicism.

As Christians, as Catholics, as a Church, and as citizens, we should always take time to check and adjust the compass that guides us.  To do this, we must ask ourselves soul-searching questions and courageously seek answers.

"What are we celebrating?" is one of those questions, because you can be certain that we are becoming whatever it is we are celebrating.  We must ask this question of ourselves, of our Church, of our nation, and of our culture.  And we would be wise to listen attentively to the answers, because these answers will utter prophetic truths about our future.  We become what we celebrate.

If you want to fight for America, celebrate our traditions and holidays.  Celebrate your family and friends.  Celebrate our country, freedoms, and life.  What we cease to recognize, we cease to have.  Our traditions and freedoms will be erased over time if we take them for granted.  COVID crackdowns took away weddings, funerals, birthdays, baptisms, graduations, concerts, parades, fireworks, festivals, and religious services.  We began to resurface only to confront ongoing fear-mongering curtailing gatherings for the new year, and berating families for joining together for Thanksgiving, Hanukkah, and Christmas.  The left has long been at war with Christmas. 

COVID provides the perfect pretext for their march against our other holidays.                 

Celebration is rooted in joy recognizing birth, family, religion, history, and patriots.  It is referred to in marriage and the Christian church as in celebrating holy matrimony, celebrating the Mass, and celebration of the Eucharist.  Its Latin origin means to frequent and honor.  Celebration is central to home, family, and ties to one's country. 

Life markers crystallize the fundamental importance and meaning of celebration.  When we are young, it means fun.  As we age, it means to treasure and preserve.  When we move, not only do we leave special memories in a place and town we called home, but every touchstone brings forth a sense of celebration.  Our lives are magnified and immortalized in the joy of celebration.  Happy memories are married to special occasions and annual events we play to and play with through the years.  Without celebration, a home is just a house.  A hometown is just a town.  Lifetime memories are anchored by places, events, and people brought together in the homes and towns of family and friends. 

Overly restrictive COVID lockdowns and mandates have squelched gatherings and shamed people for coming together as if superfluous to the human condition.  Places, events, and people are not deemed dependent on each other, isolated so as to suffocate celebration.  It is a triple play by the radical left resulting in a shut-out for American tradition.  It's not a game or an inconvenience anymore.  It never was.  It's about anti-American forces erasing the things we value by dissolving the celebrations we use to frequent and honor their importance.  

Have a blessed new year.  Become what you celebrate.  Make the most of every holiday and special occasion in 2022.  Pass tradition and memories on to the next generation.  Fight for America by celebrating what we love and hold dear.  Have a good time, too. 

Image: Alexandra Koch for Pixabay, Pixabay License.