{"id":5122,"date":"2025-12-22T10:08:26","date_gmt":"2025-12-22T15:08:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/?p=5122"},"modified":"2025-12-22T10:08:26","modified_gmt":"2025-12-22T15:08:26","slug":"beginning-again","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/2025\/12\/22\/beginning-again\/","title":{"rendered":"Beginning Again"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

To listen to today’s reflection as a podcast,\u00a0click here<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n


\u00a0Are you ready for Christmas? During the season of Advent \u2013 which annually begins on the fourth Sunday before Christmas and leads up to December 25 \u2013 followers of Jesus traditionally look for ways to prepare themselves for the coming of God\u2019s own Son into the world. Throughout December we\u2019ll ponder ways that we can ready ourselves to receive Jesus, once again, into our own hearts.<\/em>

Two weeks ago today, Philip Rivers blew out 44 candles on his birthday cake.

He and his wife Tiffany \u2013 she was his middle school crush \u2013 have seven daughters and three sons. Last year they became grandparents.

Rivers had a storied career as an NFL quarterback. He retired five years ago, having thrown the fifth-most touchdowns in league history and passed for the fifth-most yards. He is widely regarded as the greatest quarterback never to have played in a Super Bowl.

In a move that virtually no one saw coming \u2013 including Rivers himself\u2013 he un-retired two weeks ago, returning to the Indianapolis Colts, the team with whom he played the final season of his pro career in 2020.

The Colts, having just lost their starting quarterback to injury on December 7, called Rivers at his Alabama home and asked if he wanted to present his aging body as a tackling dummy for 275-pound defensive ends who would chase him with malice aforethought.

\u201cDadgummit, let\u2019s freaking do this!\u201d he replied to the Colts brass. Dadgummit<\/em>, by the way, is just about the edgiest word in Philip Rivers\u2019 vocabulary. As a committed Catholic, he chooses not to swear \u2013 something else that sets him apart in the average locker room.

Last week, he and the Colts almost pulled off the biggest upset of the regular season, falling on the road to the NFC-leading Seattle Seahawks by two points with less than a minute to play.

Tonight they will take on another high-caliber opponent, the San Francisco 49ers, on their home field in Indy.

Win or lose in tonight\u2019s contest, Rivers is likely, throughout the coming week, to be wearing the ballcap that is almost always on his head. It displays two Latin words: Nunc Coepi<\/em>.\u00a0That hat \u201ctends to be on my head most of the time, unless I\u2019m asleep,\u201d he says.\u00a0

Nunc Coepi<\/em> (pronounced \u201ccheppy\u201d) is a catchphrase popularized by the Venerable Bruno Lanteri, an 18th<\/sup> century Catholic priest who lived in northern Italy.\u00a0It comes from the Latin Vulgate translation of Psalm 77:10.\u00a0It means, \u201cNow I begin.\u201d\u00a0

Rivers made the phrase his own a number of years ago.\u00a0Nunc Coepi<\/em> \u201cis a never-ending beginning.\u00a0You are always beginning.\u00a0Now I begin again and again and again.\u201d

He says, \u201cIf you ask any of my children, \u2018What is Dad\u2019s favorite phrase?\u00a0What is our family phrase?\u2019 they would say it immediately. I really try to apply it to my life all the way through as a dad, as a husband, in my faith, on the football field as a quarterback, as a teammate \u2013 anything you can do, you are always beginning again.\u201d\u00a0

Having come tantalizingly close to a potentially season-defining victory last week, Rivers and his teammates are definitely beginning again.

The quarterback is not fazed.\u00a0

Whether you win or lose, throw a touchdown or an interception, it\u2019s always time to move to the next step.\u00a0\u201cWe begin again,\u201d he says.\u00a0\u201cWe begin again.\u201d\u00a0

As a dad, Rivers coaches his kids to begin again whenever they struggle with their math, falter on a difficult test, confront a stack of dishes, or face a pile of laundry. \u201cIf you look at the whole big pile, it looks like a lot.\u00a0But if you just begin again, begin again, and begin again, you look up and then the sink will be clean and the laundry will be folded.\u201d

Nunc Coepi<\/em> is a crucial watchword for anyone who dreams of living a faithful life.\u00a0

January 1 is America\u2019s favorite day for New Beginnings.\u00a0\u201cStarting this New Year\u2019s, I will lose weight.\u00a0I will quit smoking.\u00a0I will keep a lid on my anger.\u00a0I will be patient with my spouse and kids.\u201d\u00a0But so often we frame such resolutions as Win\/Lose.\u00a0If we blow one of those promises \u2013 and usually we’re not talking about\u00a0if<\/em>, but when<\/em> \u2013 our resolve may collapse like a house of cards.\u00a0

It can feel as if we\u2019ve gone back to Zero.\u00a0Now what do we do?

We first remember that an extraordinary proportion of everyday life is less-than-perfect.\u00a0Or just flat-out failure.\u00a0Our most earnest, heartfelt promises are never enough to keep us heading in the right direction.\u00a0

But when it comes to pursuing God, that\u2019s not fatal.<\/em>

Have I ever personally \u201csurrendered myself completely to Jesus\u201d?\u00a0You bet. In fact, I\u2019ve done it several hundred times.\u00a0And every single time I absolutely meant it.\u00a0

You would think that at least one of those spiritual Final Decisions would have \u201ctaken.\u201d\u00a0But I\u2019ve always found myself in need of starting over.\u00a0Does that mean all my previous efforts were in vain?\u00a0

It took me a long time to realize this, but each of those previous this-time-I-really-mean-it<\/em> moments was used by God to bring me to this moment<\/em>.\u00a0And this moment matters because it\u2019s the only moment where I can experience, in the here and now, God\u2019s presence and power \u2013 even if I\u2019ve faltered in the past.

The Venerable Bruno Lanteri wrote, \u201cIf I should fall even a thousand times a day, a thousand times, with peaceful repentance, I will say immediately, Nunc Coepi<\/em>.\u201d\u00a0Now I begin again.\u00a0

Or as the gospel song puts it: \u201cA saint is just a sinner who fell down\u2026and got back up.\u201d

2026 is almost upon us.\u00a0Despite our fondest wishes, it won\u2019t turn out to be the perfect flip side of this very imperfect 2025.

But whenever we stumble, fall, or run into a roadblock of someone else\u2019s making, we\u2019ll know what to do.

Nunc Coepi<\/em>.\u00a0

Secure in the realities of God’s grace, power, and forgiveness this Christmas, we begin again.\u00a0

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

To listen to today’s reflection as a podcast,\u00a0click here \u00a0Are you ready for Christmas? During the season of Advent \u2013 which annually begins on the fourth Sunday before Christmas and leads up to December 25 \u2013 followers of Jesus traditionally look for ways to prepare themselves for the coming of God\u2019s own Son into the world. Throughout December we\u2019ll ponder… Read more »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":5123,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[119,10],"class_list":["post-5122","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-christmas","tag-perseverance"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5122","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5122"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5122\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5124,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5122\/revisions\/5124"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5123"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5122"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5122"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5122"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}