Even though it has now been several years since I have been out of school and I have recently started homeschooling my children year-round, there is still something about autumn that always feels brand new. It is a time that, for many years, meant new beginnings for me. These months always marked a new grade, new teachers, new classes—and, most importantly, new school supplies! There are very few things that hold as much promise as unmarked notebooks and freshly sharpened pencils. It is interesting, though, that this should happen as the year is slowly approaching its end; as the days creep along, we come closer and closer to the year’s death, when the leaves will fall from the trees and the days themselves will wane. Our liturgical year, too, draws to a close in autumn, and our gaze, both interiorly and exteriorly, will be drawn towards the end of time. 

I do not see this pull between beginnings and endings as being discordant, for I know that even in those endings are the beginnings. Instead, I see this juxtaposition as being fully a part of the Christian life—for we must always keep the Crucified Lord before us, even when we prepare for His Nativity. We are always beginning anew. We must lay down our lives continuously, we must forgive and seek forgiveness seventy times seven times, and when we fail, we must try again. The great saints throughout Christendom have echoed this. From St. Francis of Assisi, we hear that we must “begin again for until now we have done nothing.” From St. Francis de Sales, we learn that “it is right that you should begin again every day,” since “there is no better way to complete the spiritual life than to be ever beginning it over again.” Perhaps most comforting still is what St. John Vianney tells us: “The saints did not all begin well, but they all ended well.” 

We must keep this philosophy and practice of beginning again before us always, no matter what season of the year we are in. It is especially easy to do in January, or at the beginning of a new school year or of Advent; it is easy, maybe at the 8:00 hour on Monday. But the saints remind us that we ought to begin anew always, no matter the time or the season. 

I love these quotes from these great saints, but they are not always easy to call to mind. My favorite quote—the one that is always on my lips, from the moment I rise to the moment I go to bed—is this: “Nunc coepi,” or “now I begin.” Originating from Psalm 77:11 in the Vulgate, this phrase was popularized by Venerable Bruno Lanteri, a Catholic priest living in the eighteenth century. It was revived in the twentieth century by St. Josemaría Escrivá, who wrote about it in his book Furrow:

“Nunc coepi!—now I begin! This is the cry of a soul in love which, at every moment, whether it has been faithful or lacking in generosity, renews its desire to serve—to love!—our God with a wholehearted loyalty.

Even as the year grows old, we must grow young again, and again, and begin anew always. For even now, the notebooks that were new not a month ago are beginning to be filled, and those pencils get shorter by the day. But you can always be made new through Christ, even at 3pm on a Thursday afternoon.