New Year’s Day was celebrated on March 25 in the Early Medieval period in Christian Europe. The feast, called Lady Day in England, is the start of the Legal Year until 1752.
Since the Blessed Virgin Mary’s pregnancy marked the beginning of a new era in the history of Christianity, many kingdoms also chose March 25 as the start of a new year.
It was considered as the “most sublime moment in the history of time.” The second person of the Holy Trinity assumed human nature in the womb of the Blessed Mother. Her yes paved the yes of Jesus. It is the Feast of the Lord and Mary. Could there be a more holy day?
Even when William the Conqueror of Normandy became king of England on December 25,1066, and ordered the return of New Year in January, the Christians commemorated March 25 as New Year.
In 1582 Pope Gregory XIII instituted a calendar reform and designated January 1 as New Year’s Day. But several centuries passed before the reformed Gregorian calendar was adopted by world leaders.
Life is a journey
God not only watches but becomes one of His people. Mary’s fiat did not only open her heart to Jesus, but likewise paved the way for Jesus to do so.
Every Christmas season, Christianity celebrates Jesus’ coming. And every New Year reminds mankind to take new steps to a new spirituality, a more vigilant pursuit for a life pleasing to God.
If there is an appointed time for everything, the New Year is truly the day to reflect on the past year and plan for the year that is unfolding. It is a time to respond with gratitude to the gifts of another year of life. It is a time, where every Christian should remember life on earth as a journey. It is a time never to lose sight of one’s true destiny—heaven.
Since life is a travelogue, a few questions to ponder on may pave for a more glorious new year: What resolutions or desires of your heart were not realized in 2017? Did you honestly have a steadfast spirit to pursue them? What time wasters made you lose sight of your resolutions?
January, the month that ushers a new year, was named after Janus, god of pagan Romans, double-faced, back to back. One looks at the past, another of the road ahead. Seemingly, the faces personify man’s outlook of life—the poverty of a year past and the hope and possibility of a better year ahead. A proof of man’s hopeful outlook of being in the world.
Life like clowns are masked. The seasons too are. And when the disguises are removed, man’s heart lay bare for Christ to behold.
In his search for God’s decree for man, Saint Augustine, the greatest of the fathers of the church abandoned Manichean, a religious dualism and pleaded to God: “Save me in spite of myself.”
And having reflected on new-found spiritual insights but unable to commit himself entirely to God, said: “Please make me chaste, but not yet.”
Life is a choice
From the beginning of time, a day is 24 hours. But, seemingly a day is faster in the 20th century. Perhaps, this can be attributed to the quick pace of life. Man’s worldly pursuits has set the bar of excellence for a good life, wealth and fame in a higher scale.
So in the morning, man rushes to work and at sunset is exhausted. But being tired is not an excuse not to enjoy nightlife. The art of how to live a full life, has matched progress, so too the pleasures and leisures of nightlife. How can man, with a fallen nature, readily resist? But man is not left on his own to avoid probable occasions of sin. The Holy Spirit, the sanctifier of life has endowed man with graces of enlightenment to resist sinfulness. Man has been gifted with a free will to decide for the self how to live life.
David Powlison in Seeing with New Eyes, paraphrasing John Calvin, wrote: “The evil in our desires often lies not in what we want but in the fact that we want it too much.”
Many people no longer make New Year resolutions. They are not followed anyway. “I find it difficult to do them, what for if they are meant to be broken,” they quip.
Man needs God
New Year resolutions never lessen our dignity. Instead, it makes us remember we are a fallen nature and with all the efforts of the evil one and his minions life is sans standards of goodness. Resolutions should convince people that they need God’s help to respond graciously to His call for holiness.
Scriptures tell us that the human being is deceitful, it can never be understood to the core, only God can do so.
“I, the Lord, search the minds and test the hearts of people. I treat each of them according to the way they live, according to what they do” (Jeremiah 17:10).
Santiago is a former regional director of the Department of Education National Capital Region. She is currently a faculty member of Mater Redemptoris Collegium in Calauan, Laguna, and of Mater Redemptoris College in San Jose City, Nueva Ecija.
1 comment
Let’s make like the earth and complete a personal revolution in 52 weeks!