Today is the beginning of the New Year, 2024.
I’ve been to many New Year celebrations in my life and to be honest, I’m not that bothered with them.
Compared to the festivities around Christmas, I have found New Year celebrations rather empty and shallow.
Christmas celebrates the Saviour coming into the World, or if you are more secular, ‘Love becoming incarnate’.
Christmas positively promotes selfless love, connecting with family and friends and gift giving.
Whereas New Year seems to be about having a party, drinking and dancing. Celebrating the end of the year and welcoming in the new.
We hope the next twelve months will bring a fresh start and new opportunities. But in reality, nothing changes. The loose ends of the previous year aren’t resolved. They still worryingly hang around us.
The Christian New Year
In contrast, the Western Church’s liturgical year starts with Advent, around the beginning of December.
Its purpose is to prepare us for Christ’s Coming. It is not about celebrating to excess, but about opening our lives up to the love God gives. It is our opportunity to realign ourselves to Him.
My Confession
So here is my confession.
This year I celebrated New Years. Though, at midnight, I fake cheered. I fake whooped. I drank a dram of whisky.
But through it all, I was really thinking about the Nativity. About the baby King incarnating and who gave all humanity, the chance of a real fresh start.
So this year. I pray these next twelve months will bring us all closer to Christ. His light will come and illuminate areas in our lives we need to change. And that the Holy Spirit will not only continue to indwell our hearts, but indwell all our relationships, bringing them in line with God’s love.
I wanted to ask Brother Alexander, your thoughts on the Incarnation of Christ, I love this part of the tale and think it one of the most fascinating tales of all. The metaphysics in particular fascinate me and I was wondering if you might not write an article regarding it down the road, as it was a source of inspiration to that man of saintly intellect and character Tolkien who wrote extensively on metaphysics so that I was wondering what your thoughts were on the nature of the Incarnation.
But remember the beauty of the Church calendar. January 1 is dedicated to Our Lady and normally a Holy Day of Obligation for Mass. You gotta love them for making Mass mandatory on New Year’s Day. Then we have major feast days for Elizabeth Ann Seton and John Neumann on January 4 and 5. January 6 is always feast of Epiphany, used to be called Twelfth Night (see Shakespeare) since it is 12 days from Christmas Day, as in the sung 12 days of Christmas. King cakes are baked for Epiphany parties. Even modern church calendar makes Christmas season until January 12. Traditional calendar goes until Candlemas on February 2. So yeah, it is jam packed with meaning.