Truly Celebrating the New Year

Homily for the feast of Mary the Mother of God 2012

Today, one week after the feast of Christmas, the Church provides for us a liturgical feast for the New Year. The New Year is both a secular and a religious celebration. As a secular celebration, it takes place over a 24 hour cycle as we go through the different time zones of our globe. I turned on the TV set yesterday around noon, and I was greeted with the firework display that took place in Hong Kong, which is 12 hours ahead of us.

In this form of New Year celebration the assembled crowds with their streamers and champagne cry out in unison watching the digital display: “Seven, six, five, four, three, two, one, Happy New Year.” Or we might witness this count-down from the warmth and security of our home. The earth has gone around the sun once, and a new trip around the sun begins at that moment. But we know the new year will come to an end some 365 days later. The course of time is relentless.

But is this all there is to our New Year celebration? What about the religious dimension?

We will begin with the word “new” which carries two meanings. If you go to the New Testament in the original Greek, these meanings are expressed by two words for “new”, neos and kainos. The first word pertains to our secular celebration, the second to our religious celebration.

The first word, neos, is tells us something about the measurement of time. If I say that something is new in that sense, what I am saying is that it is new within its allotted life-span. A toaster is new today, might be considered new for a while longer, but five years later ends up in the dump, and nothing can be done about it. So together with the image of a robust child which represents 2012 there is the shrivelled up oldster who represents 2011. And some of us in the congregation here today feel that in our bones. We could say “we are getting older”, but to avoid raising alarm at our stents, bypasses, and replacement knees, we prefer to say “we are not getting any younger”.

The second word, kainos, tells us about newness in a completely different sense, and it is in that sense that the New Year is a religious occasion. We are not congratulating people for now being one year closer to their grave. We are wishing for them that in the course of the year something good will happen that is genuine and will make a permanent difference. This newness takes us beyond what we can measure on a clock. This newness will never grow old over the years and fall into oblivion.

So when we wish someone Happy New Year, the key point is not to hover over our watches and feel a sense of delight because 2011 on our digital display magically turns into 2012 at the precise moment of midnight. What we really want for ourselves and for all those around us is genuine renewal, newness that does not grow old. The previous year has had its painful and difficult moments. But the new year is the opportunity for a fresh new beginning for each individual, for the communities as a whole, for our world that seeks peace. We want the year to be new in the same sense as the new heaven and the new earth we hope for as Christians. We know that we will often fail in the course of 2012. We are filled with a sense of hope: things will be different. Just wait and see. We make new year resolutions but often fail to keep them. And this sense of failure is even tronger when we survey the world in its intractable struggles. In the face of all this, however, we believe that things will be really different in the new year, that there will be real progress. But let us remember that real progress is progress not in our own eyes but in God’s. That progress is slow in coming, often imperceptible, but it is genuine and lasting. Genuine renewal is far from the superficial signs of newness that modern advertising wants us to notice. We often hear the words “new and improved”. In some cases, maybe so, but in the end those words mean nothing. That newness will be caught up in the relentless wearing down of time. By contrast the newness we wish for everyone is a newness that lasts.

How can we find access to this genuine and lasting renewal of ourselves and of our world? Our hope is not in our own resources but in God’s grace bestowed upon us. So it is essential for us to celebrate the New Year as a religious feast. God is the only one that can give us a fresh new beginning, new hope, new energy.

Before the reform of the liturgy after Vatican II, the theme of the feast was the circumcision and naming of Jesus, an event that for new-born males took place some eight days after the birth. The Gospel still features the circumcision and the naming of Jesus. However the theme of the feast today is Mary as the mother of God.

Circumcision and naming in the Jewish tradition was akin to baptism, and introduces the newborn Jew into the life of the covenant, making him an heir to God’s promises. Jesus was born into the Jewish religion, and his devout parents followed the prescribed ritual for him. He was later baptised by John, and baptism became the introductory ritual for Christians. The newness baptism introduces does not gradually wither away and disappear, but it grows into eternal life. This is the promise of our own baptism.

How does Mary as the Mother of God connect with this celebration of the New Year? The Gospel we have read features an aspect of motherhood which is essential. To be a mother is not only to bear a child for nine months, and then to give birth to it. In her heart, her spirit, her psyche, the mother continues to bear the child after it is born. We see this in Luke`s Gospel passage today. She had just given birth to her child, and the extraordinary events that surrounded the birth impressed her deeply. She pondered them in her heart. There were the shepherds that came unannounced to visit; there was the unexpected arrival of the three kings. And of course the visit of the Angel Gabriel started this whole process of wonder. Who will this child be? What will he do? What will happen to him? In the presentation in the temple a bit later on the reflection was made more poignant. She was told that her child would be a sign of contradiction, that a sword would pierce her own heart. And, like every mother, she watched her child as he developed, and treasured in her heart the signs of new life that were emerging. The quality of his infant way of looking at her. His first steps. His first words. And this continued over his entire life, as indeed it does for all mothers with their own children. They continue to bear their children, to nurture them, to treasure them close to their heart throughout their entire life. They know them in an intimate way that is beyond words.

In the events surrounding Jesus’ birth there are signs of a newness beyond the ordinary. Mary is the mother of God, of the one who came to save us, to plant the seeds of the genuine newness that we wish to one another, that we wish for our world. She may not have been able to put anything into words at this stage of her life with Jesus, but she had a deep perception, an intuition, and little by little his role and her role would become clearer.

So to celebrate Mary as the mother of God is an excellent way for us to give ourselves over to the hope that God is really with us, that in spite of appearances to the contrary there are good things going on, things that bring people closer to one another and to God. This means that the words “Happy New Year” have a great power and meaning, a power and a meaning that come not from us but from God and God’s plans for us. He was named Jesus, and the word Jesus means “God saves”. Let us turn to the eucharist to continue to enact and celebrate our salvation.