Making New Year’s resolutions is a venerable custom at this time of year. For the past year I’ve written at the beginning of each quarter — in April, July, and October — to remind people of what they resolved to do at the beginning of the year. I also aimed to urge them — like so many dieters who fall off the wagon — not to abandon their efforts but to get up, brush their pants off, and recommit.

Good New Year’s resolutions should be, after all, habits. Why are habits important? Because, as St. Thomas Aquinas notes, they become connatural, almost “second nature.” They make doing good (or evil) easier by not making you think about it.

Consider driving. When you learned to drive, you consciously had to think about where you put your foot, when you pressed down on the gas, how you used the brake. If you were learning to drive a stick shift, you had to know when to move from first gear to second to third. But when you become a good driver, you don’t “think” about those things. In fact, thinking about them would probably make you a worse driver, because it would slow your reactions. A skilled driver drives without putting explicit conscious thought into every step. The same is true in our lives at-large.

That’s why New Year’s resolutions are terrific opportunities to develop good habits (otherwise known as “virtues”) as well as remove bad ones (otherwise called “vices”). And because acquisition of virtues usually takes time, periodic “get back in the saddle” messages do help. If you plan on making New Year’s resolutions, I suggest right now drawing a red circle on your calendars on April 1, July 1, and October 1. Then you’ll remember to check in on yourself with the famous New York Mayor Ed Koch question: “So, how’m I doin’?”

If you’re looking for resolutions, I share three that I heard in a sermon by a wonderful priest, Fr. Ignatius Kuziemski, in my boyhood parish some 50 years ago. Fr. Kuziemski’s three New Year’s resolutions were simple, which was perhaps why they were so hard. Commit yourself, he said, to this schedule:

1. Daily Prayer. Let’s be honest: How many of us are consistently faithful to that charge? I recommend to you the advice of Our Lady of La Salette: “Be sure to say [your prayers] well morning and evening. When you cannot do better, say at least an Our Father and a Hail Mary; but when you have time, say more.” Our Mother gives us a bare minimum that, in all honesty, might take up two minutes of your morning and night, before you crawl out of or into bed, before you hit that snooze button. Why not resolve at least that bare minimum?
2. Weekly Mass. It’s a Commandment, but one sadly neglected. How often does Sunday Mass, which should be the centerpiece of the week, become another “thing” to be negotiated into the schedule of the weekend? How often do people who otherwise get out the door on time for a job or a game or a date have trouble showing up at Mass punctually? Let’s decide to fix those things.
3. Monthly Confession. Post-Vatican II, we’ve seen the phenomenon of infrequent Confession and frequent Communion — an anomaly, since Communion is intended to deepen our relationship with God which ought to, then, also heighten our sensitivity to how sin mars it. In truth, however, the dissociation tends to turn Eucharistic reception into a rote action that neglects the deepening of charity it ostensibly seeks to achieve. Regular spiritual checkups root out complacency and force us more seriously to assess our progress in charity, something that should not be limited to thorough inspection only in Lent and perhaps a side glance in Advent.

Consider these resolutions for Holy Year 2025, not just as concrete “to do’s” but as habits to acquire.

Happy New Year!