The Death of the Old Year

Full knee-deep lies the winter snow,
And the winter winds are wearily sighing:
Toll ye the church bell sad and slow,
And tread softly and speak low,
For the old year lies a-dying.
Old year you must not die;
You came to us so readily,
You lived with us so steadily,
Old year, you shall not die.

–Alfred, Lord Tennyson

So the old year, 2023, is on its way out. In days gone by, Guy Lombardo and his Royal Canadians serenaded America via television from New York’s Waldorf-Astoria Hotel, while the mob waited for the ball to drop in Times Square at Midnight. At that point, Lombardo and the band would strike up Auld Lang Syne — the Robbie Burns air he and the band had made synonymous with New Year’s Eve. At the Waldorf and all across the country — and indeed, the planet — at that stroke, strangers would kiss for good luck, champagne flutes would toast the New Year, and the nation and the world would welcome the bouncing Baby New Year. Despite “Mr. New Year’s Eve’s” oft-repeated humourous threat that when he died, “I’m taking New Year’s Eve with me,” Lombardo very kindly left it for us to enjoy, having nevertheless shaped it customs and atmosphere — even if few young people to-day remember either his name or his songs — “the sweetest music this side of Heaven.”

Indeed, the sweet and lovely tones of Auld Land Syne do seem to express what is perennial at the end of one year, and the beginning of the next — nostalgia for a golden past, regret for lost opportunities, and hope for a better future. The latter, of course, has given rise to the whole “New Year’s resolution” custom.

These feelings are perennial among the human race, regardless of time or place. As Robert Chambers noted back in 1867,

…to the community at large, the passing away of the Old Year and the arrival of his successor is heralded by the peals of bells, which, after twelve o’clock has struck, burst forth from every steeple, warning us that another year has commenced. At such a moment, painful reflections will obtrude themselves, of time misspent and opportunities neglected, of the fleeting nature of human existence and enjoyment, and that ere many more years have elapsed, our joys and sorrows, our hopes and our forebodings, will all, along with ourselves, have become things of the past. Such is the dark side of the question, but it has also its sunny side and its silver lining:

‘For Hope shall brighten days to come
And Memory gild the past.’

And on such an occasion as we are contemplating, it is both more noble and more profitable to take a cheerful and reassuring view of our condition, and that of humanity in general, laying aside futile reflections on past imprudence and mismanagement, and resolving for the future to do our utmost in fulfilling our duty to God and our fellow-men.

This is certainly, naturally speaking, a decent and good attitude to take toward the issue. But the Church, as always, supernaturalises the most natural things. As Dom Gueranger tells us in his coverage of the feast of St. Sylvester in The Liturgical Year,

The Civil Year ends today. At Midnight, a New Year will begin, as the world counts time, and the present one will sink into the abyss of eternity. It is one step further on in our lives, and brings us nearer to that end of all things which St. Peter says is at hand. The Liturgy, which brings a new Ecclesiastical Year on the First Sunday of Advent, has no special prayers in the Roman Church, for the beginning of the Year on the First of January; but her spirit — which takes an interest in everything affecting the well-being of individuals or society at large — her spirit is, that we should, sometime in the course of this last day of the Year, make a fervent act of thanksgiving to God for the blessings he has bestowed upon us during the past twelve months.

Rome sets us the example. Today, the Sovereign Pontiff goes, in state, to the Gesù (or, as we should call it, Jesus’ Church), and there assists at a solemn Te Deum; the Benediction of the Blessed Sacrament follows it, blessing, as it were, the public act of thanksgiving, and giving a pledge of blessings for the coming Year.

Similarly, as the Church grants a plenary indulgence for reciting the Te Deum on New Year’s Eve, so too does she give us one for saying or chanting the Veni Creator Spiritus, invoking the blessings of the Holy Ghost upon the year ahead. It is the Feast of the Circumcision of Our Lord — the first of the Seven Bloodlettings He would endure that resulted at last in the possibility of our Salvation.

It was the custom in all the Royal Courts of Catholic Europe to attend High Mass on this day together with the Sovereign and Imperial or Royal family. Afterwards there would be a reception in which the Monarch would receive the diplomatic corps, bishops, judges, and other ecclesiastical, political, educational, and military figures. The tradition is continued in a sense at the Viceregal courts of Canada and her provinces, wherein the Governor-General and Lieutenant Governors receive such dignitaries and the general public at New Year’s Levees in the respective Government Houses. A similar ceremony was observed by president George Washington at his New York and Philadelphia residences, and later at the White House, until Herbert Hoover ended the practice in 1933.

For us, of course, we have the wonderful opportunities to say both the Te Deum on the Eve and the Veni Creator Spiritus; New Year’s Day is in any case a Holy Day of Obligation — whether we call it either the Circumcision or the feast of Mary, Mother of God. If we have kept a late New Year’s Eve, either outside at a hotel, club, or restaurant, we might not feel too much like getting up early. For many years, in Los Angeles, I would go to Mass in the morning of New Year’s Day, head down to Little Tokyo to enjoy a festive Osechi brunch (the Japanese keep New Year’s as a major holiday — and the Emperor receives visitors and even has an annual poetry party to commemorate it). This multi-cultural day would end with listening to the New Year’s Concert from Vienna on PBS. Living in Austria where I do, the past few years I have started the day with a Byzantine Liturgy (it is the feast of the Circumcision and St. Basil in their calendar), had brunch with friends, gone int Vienna for a Traditional Latin Mass, had dinner with more friends, and returned to my home to watch the same concert — only in the country of its origin.

Certainly, there are many ways to celebrate this day which is, after all, still part of the Twelve Days of Christmas (it is its very Octave!), rather than a standalone observance of its own. It is part and parcel of the Church Year, which in its various forms has been turning its circle since the days of the early Church. As with Robert Chambers and Dom Gueranger, and with everyone who has lived since the Church began, our lives have been, are being, and shall be measured out with the changing feasts and seasons. This year of 2023 is ending — as has every year — with scandals in Church and State, with wars and rumours of wars. So too, does 2024 begin. It is tempting to pull these things out of their context in this, our fallen world of sin and shadows. But we must not. Instead, to persevere through another year we must turn our hearts and thoughts toward Heaven, remembering that permanent and changeless though it is, its human denizens, like us, were united to it and to each other first by the Sacraments, Faith, Hope, and Charity. They too kept the feasts of the Year, and one by one saw their years drop away, one by one. Many had to have their temporal punishment burned away in Purgatory; some ascended straightaway to Heaven — many if not most of those through martyrdom. We are closest to them in this pace of exile when we say the prayers, receive the Sacraments, and observe the feasts that sustained them while they were here. It is in that spirit, then, that I wish all of you a happy, holy, and joyous 2024!