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We all worry. We worry about the future, about all the things that could go wrong. On the one hand, it’s good to be prepared, but worrying is a spiritual problem. A very human one, but a problem nonetheless.

Every new year marks a new beginning, a chance to make a fresh start. This is a hopeful thought and a very “Catholic” thought. Our life of faith is always a work of beginning and beginning again.

Liturgy shapes our buildings and our buildings shape our liturgy. Basic principles for designing or renovating churches are drawn from several of Vatican II’s documents on the liturgy, but we cannot build churches that are modeled on what we understood about the worshiping Church in years gone by because we are a different Church.

As people of faith, we know that our hope is found not in political parties or their candidates but in Jesus Christ and his church. So, instead of dreading the first Tuesday in November and the inevitably contentious lead-up, here are five events Catholics can anticipate with joy this calendar year.

A matter of faith: We believe in the year given to us by God. We marvel at its novelty, things that are not only new but “have never been.” It sounds so clean and hopeful, like a fresh blanket of snow.

Advocacy for the life of the unborn reminds us that Jesus is the true victor.

Two martyrs — St. Stephen and St. Thomas Becket — and the Holy Infants who lost their lives to Herod’s vicious pursuit of Christ have feast days this week. What is the church trying to tell us by situating these particular feasts just after the joyful celebration of the Savior’s birth?

The joyous preparations that typically mark the approach of the feast of the Nativity have taken on a different hue in the city of Bethlehem.