Use New Year to recommit to spirituality

By Dan Peterson and William Hamblin

For the Deseret News

Published: Saturday, Dec. 29 2012 5:00 a.m. MST

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Summary

In the increasingly secular West, the New Year is often nothing more than an excuse for excess. But the roots of New Year festivals stretch back to the sacred calendars of antiquity. Most religions have sacred or liturgical calendars that assign special days for the commemoration of their great spiritual events and the mighty acts of God. In a sense, a sacred calendar ritually re-creates the major events in a community's sacred history on a cyclical yearly basis.

Pentecost — also called Whitsunday or "White Sunday," because of the white robes worn anciently by the newly baptized converts — is the seventh Sunday after Easter, commemorating the descent of the Holy Spirit upon the Apostles after Christ's ascension (Acts 2). The feast of the Transfiguration (Aug. 6) commemorates the Transfiguration of Christ (Luke 9:28-36).

The Dormition ("Falling Asleep") of Mary (Aug. 15) is known in the West as the Assumption of Mary. It memorializes a late tradition that Mary didn't die but was assumed bodily into Heaven, paralleling Christ's post-resurrection ascension.

Thus, for eastern Christians, the New Year isn't a time for drunken revelry but for reconsecration of the spiritual life, the true gift of Christmas.

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Beowulf

Portland, OR

In Japan, New Year's Day is a religious holiday, observed in both the Buddhist and Shinto traditions. In the 30 minutes straddling the New Year, NHK (the public broadcasting company in Japan) presents a program called Outgoing Year-Incoming Year More..

1:57 p.m. Dec. 29, 2012
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