Sir Gawain and the New Year’s challenge

New Year’s is approaching, and along with it, the traditional day of taking up a new challenge. Changes will be made. This is the year to finally start exercising, battle that addiction to high-calorie coffee drinks piled high with whipped cream, become a better parent, a nicer person, pray every night, never miss Sunday Mass ...whatever the challenge is, New Year’s Day is the most optimistic of all days to finally tackle it.

The least optimistic day, the day when the true difficulty of the challenge really hits home, is usually about a week later (two if you have iron self-will). That’s when the gyms empty out again, old habits reassert themselves, the new prayer disciplines falter.

Who can blame us? With the hopeful glow of Christmas still lingering and the year 2026 blinding us with its glittering possibility, we didn’t know what we were committing to. No one knew how hard it would be!

The reality is that January is cold and dark. No one can be expected to remain motivated in such harsh conditions, at least, not without a delicious coffee drink in our hands. And if I take a day off from my early morning workouts to sleep in, I think that’s understandable, yes?

The point remains that, year after year, New Year’s Resolutions persist, indicating that, collectively, we sense our need for self-improvement. We’re nothing if not persistent. No matter what happened last year, we’ll try again. The trick is how to actually make the change stick. How can we take up the challenge in such a way as to not abandon it before winter is over.

Recently, I re-read the great medieval poem “Sir Gawain and the Green Knight,” which can be read as the story of one man’s acceptance of a New Year’s Resolution. His subsequent struggle to achieve it makes for fascinating reading.

The plot, really, is simple. On New Year’s Eve, King Arthur and his knights are feasting when suddenly a mysterious Green Knight appears and offers a game. If any knight wants to take a swing at him with an ax, he’ll allow it to happen on the condition that, afterwards, he gets to swing at the knight. Sir Gawain accepts the offer and (oh what a fun game) beheads the Green Knight. The Green Knight then picks up his severed head and instructs Gawain to meet him in his Green Chapel exactly one year later to receive his ax blow.

Gawain, obviously, is concerned but the challenge has been issued, the terms of the game accepted, and he knows his obligation. The question is, will he backtrack on his vow? Will he break the rules of the game and run the other way? The game itself was never a trivial matter. It was a test. It functions as a sort of New Year’s Resolution. Gawain, it seems needs some self-improvement in the area of impulse control. The game forces him into a challenge in which he must learn to behave with honor and integrity.

By the time All Souls Day arrives the following autumn, Gawain is ready to set out. Essentially, he departs to his death. All through the season of Advent, he searches for the Green Chapel, ending up lost and hungry in the wilderness. Finally, on Christmas Eve he stops and asks Our Lady to deliver him safely to a place where he at least might hear Holy Mass and pray Matins for the holiday. This is when a castle miraculously appears. He stays there for a week, tempted by the lady of the castle who he rebuffs before finally discovering the Green Chapel. The temptation in the castle is his culminating test. Will he maintain his New Year’s Resolution even with the opportunity of pleasure and ease trying to derail him?

Gawain holds firm. Finally knowing the location of the chapel, he is at the final moment of decision. He can still turn back. New Year’s Resolutions are meant to be broken, after all. No one would blame him. In fact, his servant begs him to turn around, saying,

The knight won’t turn around, though. Over the past year, Gawain has discovered within himself a steely determination to make up for his past failures. He will keep his New Year’s vow.

In the Green Chapel, the sound of the ax blade being sharpened rings off the stones. It sounds like water whirring and rushing through a mill, the sound of impending doom. Still, Gawain holds to his promise. He offers his neck to the blade. The Green Knight menaces and toys with Gawain, but when he finally swings the ax it only slightly nicks him on the neck. On New Year’s day, Gawain is spared. He is reborn.

At the start of the story, Gawain is a man trapped by his vices. He’s stuck in a vicious loop. Each New Year finds him caught; “And thus wears the year into yesterdays many,/ and winter walks again, as the world’s way is.” By the end, though, exactly one year and one day later, he has broken the cycle. On New Year’s Day, the Feast of the Circumcision of Our Lord, he sheds a drop of blood, nicked by the ax blade. He has paid the price and survived a purgation. In doing so, he has been set free.

Isn’t this precisely the goal of our New Year’s Resolutions? To be set free from a bad habit that’s holding us back?

The lesson here is clear. We cannot change without accepting at least a little bit of suffering. Like Gawain, we have to fight through the wilderness, learn to overcome the temptation of the easy life, be willing to suffer with Our Lord.

I don’t know about you, but I’m not content to repeatedly indulge in my weaknesses, the trap of self-indulgence that leads to mediocrity. We are meant to seek greatness. We are created by God to accept the New Year’s challenge and carry it through to the end.

I hope that this coming year finds us focused and ready. In order to do so, we cannot give up on our efforts. To achieve our goals, we have to be ready to leave behind our vices and selfish desires even when it’s uncomfortable. It’s only by taking up the challenge and dying to our old selves that we can truly begin to live.