2020! Who in our troubled times can resist the temptation to write something about “20-20 Vision.” Finally we have the opportunity to see things clearly. Okay, it’s gimmicky and sounds like the report from some hellacious and endless “strategic planning process,” but bear with me.

The tragic news of a very dear friend’s dreadful diagnosis and terrible prognosis pushed me from a vague sense of “20-20 vision” to clarity. My vision for 2020 is: Memento mori. Be mindful that you will die. Sounds a bit more like Ash Wednesday, but Happy New Year anyway.

And about Ash Wednesday: this year when priests across the world will mark our foreheads with ashes saying, “Remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return,” it will be on my birthday — when I begin collecting Social Security. Oh, dear. Dust to dust indeed.

It points to a simple truth: someday — sooner at this point rather than later — the dreadful diagnosis and terrible prognosis will be mine. And, dear reader, yours is coming as well.

Am I being morbid during this Christmas season of feasting and joy? I don’t think so. I think I’ve finally gotten down to the bedrock on which to build my priorities — to build my 20-20 vision, if you will — for however many years I have left.

I Need Holiness

When our son was about twelve, I led a small group on how to parent teenagers. Why, just when you’re facing mid-life, asked the host of the video series, has God burdened you with teenagers? His answer was as simple as it was unexpected: because you’re getting old, time is running out, and you need to grow up. That is, God designed teenagers to force their parents to become adults. We can live like bratty sixteen-year-olds in adult bodies only so long. When we have teens in the house, it’s time to step up and be the adults they need us to be.

In the same way, we ask why the sorrows, sicknesses, weakness, and travails of (Dare I say it?) old age. The answer is pretty much the same: I’m getting old, time is running out, and — assuming I’ve grown up — I need holiness, “without which no one will see the Lord” (Hebrews 12:14).

Much as I love skiing, fishing, hiking, cooking, eating, reading, traveling, growing better tomatoes, and watching British mysteries on TV, none of these can prepare me for what is surely coming. And you can add in all the items from your list and there’s still no solution. They may be fun, but they will not make us holy.

Not that these are somehow bad. They’re not. We should enjoy our avocations and the free time retirement affords to do that. At the same time, in the final analysis, those things are inadequate. Inadequate for happiness in this life and inadequate for forming us in holiness and thus preparing us for happiness in the life to come.

What then do we need? “It is Jesus in fact that you seek when you dream of happiness,” said Pope St. John Paul II. Exactly. And Jesus is not a hobby, an avocation, but a vocation.

Completely Oriented Toward the Father

“Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace among men with whom he is pleased!” sang the angels (Luke 2:14). Who then are those who please God? In his book Jesus of Nazareth: The Infancy Narratives, Pope Benedict XVI comments, “The man ‘with whom he is pleased,’ [Luke 3:22] is Jesus. And the reason for this is that Jesus lives completely oriented toward the Father, focused upon him and in communion of will with him. So men ‘with whom he is pleased’ [Luke 2:14] are those who share the attitude of the Son — those who are conformed to Christ.”

That can be you and me. Therein lies holiness. And because therein lies holiness, therein lies happiness as well — in this world and the world to come.

With that in mind, my “20-20 vision” is augmented well by a prayer of St. Thomas Aquinas about ordering life:

O merciful God, grant that I may desire ardently, search prudently, recognize truly, and bring to perfect completion whatever is pleasing to You for the praise and glory of Your name. … May I not rejoice in anything unless it leads me to You; may I not be saddened by anything unless it turns me from You. May I desire to please no one, nor fear to displease anyone, but You. May all transitory things, O Lord, be worthless to me and may all things eternal be ever cherished by me.

So have a Happy and Blessed New Year and memento mori.