WHAT KIND OF NEW YEAR?

El Greco, the Blessed Virgin Mary

A new year, for most people, implies resolutions and an attempt to improve one’s life. Yet as a Catholic text I saw this morning said, the beginning of a civic year (the Church’s year, don’t forget, starts with Advent) stands in the sign of the Mother of Christ. It may be useful – and, in a way, a relief – to remember her reaction to the unexpected visit of an archangel: “Behold the handmaid of the Lord: be it unto me according to thy word.” Instead of specific resolutions, with their known limited half-life, we might think of making these words, and this thought, our own for 2018: a year to be spent in the silence of listening, whatever the world’s noise around us.

SOMETHING OLD, SOMETHING NEW

What's new is the year. What's old is the language. To wish everyone the very best for this year, there is no better wish than faith. Here is one way to strengthen it, quietly, quietly, every morning. Just before rising, say this prayer.

O Lord our heavenly Father,
almighty and everlasting God,
who hast safely brought us to the beginning of this day,
defend us in the same with thy mighty power,
and grant that this day we fall into no sin,
neither run into any kind of danger;
but that all our doings may be ordered by thy governance,
to do always that is righteous in thy sight.
Through Jesus Christ our Lord.
Amen.

The Book of Common Prayer's Third Collect, for Grace, in the service of Morning Prayer, it is a translation of a Latin original from the 5th century Gelasian sacramentary, and as the French say, in five-and-a-half centuries it has not taken on a wrinkle. No need to "update" or "modernise". A perfect companion to a new day, and to a new year. 

IN A NEW YEAR

Last Sunday, we were reminded that the Last Sunday After Trinity, now known as the Sunday Before Advent, and known in Catholic circles as Christ the King, is in fact the last Sunday of the liturgical year. So tomorrow, the First Sunday in Advent, begins a new year. And it begins so quietly. One little candle in the darkness, in the storms, in the long nights of snow, in all the depths of the world. About that we can talk tomorrow --  but what about this new year, then? There should at least be a little celebration, a sense that renewal is not doomed but possible, a consciousness that, as someone put it, we fall down ten times; but when we get up the eleventh time, that’s faith. And hope.

   Many years ago, in early January, Schultz published a Peanuts cartoon featuring Lucy looking crossly at the sky and saying, “We’ve been cheated! It’s not a new year! They’ve given us a used year!” Sometimes January’s new year can feel like that. But the new year of Advent should not. No matter where we are, how we are, in that new year the year can be new. In our hearts, in our minds, and – let’s bring back that entity the Enlightenment downplayed – in our souls, a spring is possible. Somebody wrote that the fig tree is such a beloved symbol in the Bible because it burgeons, it gets leaf-buds, very early, yet its fruit ripen late. So if in the spring of this new year we bud early but then not much seems to happen, let us not be sad or discouraged: there will be a summer, and there will be fruit.

   And a final word about “the season” – “the holiday season”, “the shopping season” and all those things we love to get angry at even as we are part of them. A new year suggests a few good resolutions. Could we perhaps begin with the resolution not to be defensive about Christmas, not to bitch at bad music in shopping centres, not to grouch and grinch and complain? A resolution to live this season – which is as much happily pagan as it is, for us, also happily religious – with confidence and pleasure, on whatever scale pleases us and those we love? Such a resolution would help increase the joy of the world in expectation of the dies Natalis, would allow us to smile at our families, our neighbours, and strangers, and to pass on whatever help we can spare to those whose new year begins in trouble, sorrow, need, sickness or any other adversity. In newness of life.

PER UN'ANNO NUOVO

For the new year (felix faustumque sit omnibus!) I thought I would put up a prayer traditionally said to be by St Francis, though scholars now doubt this. It is certainly in his spirit, and the current most famous Francis would doubtless approve it too. The version above I wrote out for my parents many, many years ago, in the original Italian, which is still the most melodious language I know. I give it here in both tongues:

O Signore, fa' di me un istrumento della tua pace:

Dove è odio, fa' ch'io porti l'amore,

Dove è offesa, fa' ch'io porti lo perdono,

Dove è dubbio, fa' ch'io porti la fede,

Dove è disperazione, fa' ch'io porti la speranza,

Dove è tristezza, fa' ch'io porti la Gioia,

Dove sono le tenebre, fa' ch'io porti la Luce.

O Maestro, fa' ch'io non cerchi tanto

Ad esser consolato, quanto a consolare,

Ad esser compreso, quanto a comprendere,

Ad esser amato, quanto ad amare;

Poiche  si è dando che si riceve,

Perdonando che si è perdonato,

Morendo che si risuscita a vita eterna. 

O Lord, make me an instrument of Thy peace:

Where there is hatred, let me bring love,

Where there is offence, let me bring forgiveness,

Where there is doubt, let me bring faith,

Where there is despair, let me bring hope,

Where there is sadness, let me bring Joy,

Where the shadows are, let me bring Light. 

O Master, let me not seek so much

To be consoled, as to console,

To be understood, as to understand,

To be loved, as to love;

For it is in giving that we receive,
In forgiving that we are forgiven,
In dying that we are reborn to life eternal.

May we all remember this, and have it granted!