NEW YEAR IS AN OPPORTUNITY TO PONDER A NEW DIRECTION: ARCHBISHOP OF DUBLIN'S NEW YEAR MESSAGE

In his New Year message the Archbishop of Dublin, the Most Revd Dr John Neill warned that as a nation “our value system becomes increasingly linked to wealth, instant gratification and a shallow celebrity culture” and that “we are being sucked into a society that has lost its way.” He added “in place of the inner peace that can change people, we have substituted the perpetual restlessness that destroys.”

Concluding the Archbishop said “new year is an opportunity to ponder a new direction.”

New Year Message from the Archbishop of Dublin

The beginning of a new year raises a variety of feelings, sometimes relief that the previous year is over, but also feelings of hope, or uncertainty or even fear about what may lie ahead. Many such attitudes are shaped by the various economic forecasts that bombard us.

We are as a nation more exposed than ever to this “roller-coaster of feelings” as our value system becomes increasingly linked to wealth, instant gratification and a shallow celebrity culture. We watch the highs and lows of the lives of others with intensity, though often without asking deeper questions. The drug culture that has recently come to public attention is indeed about addiction, but it is also about wealth, instant self-gratification, and criminal activity including mindless violence and murder. We are learning how quickly we are being sucked into a society that has lost its way.

What I have described is not the way that God intends us to live our lives in this world. In Jesus, he has shown us the way of love, of self-giving, forgiveness and of life with meaning. In place of the inner peace that can change people, we have substituted the perpetual restlessness that destroys.

Some sixteen hundred years ago, St. Augustine, mindful of his own life before he became a follower of Jesus, uttered this prayer - "You have made us for yourself, and our hearts are restless until they rest in thee."

New Year is an opportunity to ponder a new direction.

- ENDS –