Saint Peter's Church, Devizes

Dear People of St. Peter’s Parish,

   I have never really asked myself why I am so unenthusiastic about New Year celebrations. Is it because by 31st December I’m ‘partied out’? Unlikely. Is it because, when I was teaching, New Year was always so close to the beginning of term that I was too busy preparing new texts and writing lesson plans to notice? Was it because I believed that all that really was worth celebrating had been remembered & marked at Christmas? Or just a distaste for mindless euphoria – and the hangover that often went with it? Was it an awareness that, for many across the world, the coming year could well bring challenges they might not survive? More probably, a combination of all of these?

   In my teens and early twenties, I used to take refuge from family celebrations with my history teacher and his wife in their cottage in a village on the edge of Salisbury. They were childless – though they would have made brilliant parents – claiming that the world was not the kind of place into which they thought they ought to bring children…and marvelling at the courage of those who did. We celebrated not ‘the New Year’, but our friendship. And, I suppose, for me it was also a way of showing how grateful I was for their generously given help & encouragement.

   A new year is a time for living out the message of Christmas – what St. Paul calls ‘the loving kindness of God our Saviour’ which dawned upon the world in the stable at Bethlehem ‘bringing life & immortality to light’. It is nothing unless it involves a serious look back at the year that is ending with a view to using the new year – this new gift of time - better than we used the old. Looking back in this way is not an entirely comfortable undertaking. It requires effort …and some courage. It may be easier to see the old year out in a ‘happy’ alcoholic daze. But, as human beings made in the image of God, we are capable of better than that!

Wishing you every blessing in the New Year,

Fr. Peter