Pope Francis’ 10 New Year’s Resolutions for you

Here are ten things that Pope Francis called upon Vatican personnel to do:

• take care of your spiritual life, your relationship with God, because this is the backbone of all that we do and all that we are. A Christian who does not nourish himself with prayer, the Sacraments and the Word of God, inevitably withers and shrivels. Take care of your spiritual life;
• take care of your family life, giving your children and your dear ones not only money, but most of all time, attention and love;
• take care of your relationships with others, transforming faith into life and words into good works, especially for the most needy;
• take care of your speech, purifying your language of offensive words, of vulgarity and of decadent worldly expressions;
• take care of the wounds of the heart with the oil of forgiveness, forgiving the people who have injured us and treating the injuries that we have inflicted on others;
• take care of your work, performing it with enthusiasm, with humility, with skill, with passion, with a mind that knows how to thank the Lord;
• eliminate envy, concupiscence, hatred and the negative feelings that devour our inner peace and turn us into ruined and destructive people;
• eliminate the rancour that leads us to vengeance, and the laziness that leads us to existential euthanasia, the finger-pointing that leads to arrogance, and the continual complaining that leads us to desperation. I know that sometimes, in order to keep a job, one speaks ill of someone, in order to defend oneself. I understand these situations, but that is the wrong road. In the end we will all be destroyed by ourselves, not this, it is of no use. Instead, ask the Lord for the wisdom to know how to bite one’s tongue at times, in order not to say hurtful words, which afterwards leave bitterness in the mouth;
• take care of weakest brothers and sisters; I have seen so many good examples of this among you, and I thank you for this. My compliments! Namely, take care of the elderly, the sick, the hungry, the homeless and foreigners because we will be judged on this;
• ensure that Holy Christmas is never a celebration of commercial consumerism, of appearances or of useless gifts, or of excessive waste, but that it is a celebration of joyfully welcoming the Lord into the crib and into the heart.

From an address of His Holiness Pope Francis, Monday, 22 December 2014