We might have had different plans for this year, but were they really supposed to happen? We all wonder whether we’re actually following God’s will for us, but the reality is that, unless we are directly going against the Lord in some way, we are doing his will by just living our life. Wherever this year has taken us, whatever it has us doing, is exactly where God wants us to be. This is one of the joys of being a faithful Christian: as long as we are following the laws of the Lord, we can never be outside his will. This is true even today, as everything we thought we knew about this year was turned on its head. We may have had radically different plans and expectations for where we’d be now, or what we’d be doing, but it wasn’t the will of God. God has us exactly where he wants us, and as long as we remain faithful to him, we’ll follow the path that he’s paved for our lives. So, what if we’re not following the Lord? This is what the call of repentance is all about: if we’re not following the Lord, then we get to change the course of our lives and turn toward him through confession and penance. And you know when a perfect time for this is? Christmas! Because of Christmas, our lives don’t have to be a lost cause or a dead end. Because God gave his only begotten son to us, we can turn our lives around and aim them at the light of Christ. It’s through the incarnation that eternal life with God became a possibility and that repentance was born. Because Christ came to earth, we can use our lives to follow the will of God, even after steering off course. We now have a future, through the power of our Father’s love. – Fr. Mike Schmitz