Happy New Year!

No, I'm not a month early. I'm just using a different calendar. I'm using the Christian calendar, which begins on the 1st Sunday of Advent, which was yesterday. It is amazing how the Christian year starts off so differently from the regular new year on January first. The Christian year is Christ focused (surprisingly enough), we begin our year by focusing completely on Someone else. Instead of making personal resolutions, "this year I will do x,y, and z" we ponder both what God has done by the Incarnation and what he will do in the Eschaton. It's a radically different orientation to the ego-centric world most of us live in.

It's also arranged to increase expectation. Instead of looking back over the past year, our focus is pulled ever forward, first to Christmas, then the Epiphany, then Lent, Passion Week, hitting the high point at Easter, then Pentecost, then Ordinary time (from Pentecost till the 1st Sunday of Advent is 5-6 months depending on when Easter falls). It's a progression and an incorporation into the Gospel story. Every year the Christians using this calendar cycle through the life of Christ, in an ever deepening spiral year after year. Advent is always the same, but each Advent we are different because of what has transpired in the previous year. The Christian calendar gives believers places to stop and reflect periodically.

So may this new year be filled with the richest blessings of Christ, may you journey with him from birth, through death, and into life eternal; growing in wisdom, knowledge, grace, truth, love, beauty, holiness, ever-reflecting more of Jesus Christ. I pray this in the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.