HOMILY for February 2, 2020: Feast of the Presentation of the Lord, Cycle A

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Feast of the Presentation of the Lord, Cycle A

Mercy Ridge Hermitage

February 2, 2020   

Forming Good Habits

By (Rev. Msgr.) Nicholas P. Amato

Habits 

This morning, I want to reflect with you on habits.

Habits! If we think about it for just a second, all of us can easily see that we have habits in our lives.

When I get out of bed in the morning, I brush my teeth and shave and shower and get dressed. And all of this is habit.

When we go to bed at night, we make sure that the doors are locked and the lights are out. Habits.

We get in the car and automatically buckle our seatbelts. Habit.

We may drive to work or to the grocery store and not even think about which roads to take or which turns to make. Habit.

There is an expression that we human beings are creatures of habit – creatures of habit! I’ve heard an estimate that 40 to 50% of the things we do in everyday life are out of habit – amazing!

Definition of Habit 

A habit can be defined as any practice that we do regularly and routinely with little or no effort of the mind or the will.

So, any practice that we do maybe every day, maybe even at the same time every day. And we do it without having to think about it or having to decide whether to do it or not.

We just do it automatically – something that has become automatic probably from just doing it over and over again. So, A habit is any practice that we do regularly and routinely with little or no effort of the mind or the will.

Habits: Simeon and Anna

In today’s gospel, we see these two older persons: Simeon and Anna.

They are like warm, wise, loving grandparents. And what strikes me is that Simeon and Anna have habits of faithfulness.

They come to the temple regularly. They pray every day.

And these habits of faithfulness to God give them hope and peace. Simeon has the hope that he will see the savior of God before he dies.

His habits of faithfulness sustain this hope. And this in turn makes him so peaceful that he is ready to die after he has seen the Christ Child.

Simeon offers that beautiful prayer that we hear today: “Now, master, you can let your servant go in peace, for my eyes have seen your salvation.” The same thing is true for Anna.

She is eighty-four years-old and gives thanks to God upon seeing the Christ Child. Her habits of faithfulness have also sustained her hope and brought her inner peace.

Our Habits 

Today, I want to recommend three habits of faithfulness for us to consider. 

If we don’t have any of these in our lives right now, please consider trying to develop one of them. If we already have one of these in our lives, maybe we are ready to adopt a second.

So, maybe a habit of pre-set prayer – a habit of praying the Our Father or the Hail Mary, a decade of the rosary, a novena, an Act of Contrition, a psalm from the Old Testament. Some habit of pre-set prayer, a prayer composed by someone else and that we may have learned by heart, praying a prayer like this we each day and, if possible, at a set time each day.

Or maybe a habit of meditative prayer – a habit of reading a short passage of a gospel – one parable or teaching or action of Jesus – and reflecting to see what God is saying to me and wants me to do here. A habit of meditative prayer each day and again, if possible, at a set time each day.

Or maybe a habit of thankful prayer – a habit of looking back on the day and thanking God for both the simple and the special blessings of that day. A habit of thankful prayer, maybe at the end of each day, sometime in the evening or right before going to bed.

  

Conclusion

So, pick one or two of these habits of faithfulness.

Make this part of your everyday life. Let this practice become a habit – an automatic.

And see if it doesn’t do for you what habits of faithfulness did for Simeon and Anna. See if it doesn’t sustain you with hope and give you