Archpastoral Letter For The Beginning of the Church New Year (Indiction) 2010
Prot. N. 199
To
the Very Reverend Protopresbyters, Very Reverend and Reverend Fathers,
Monastics, and the pious faithful of our God-saved Diocese,
Glory
to Jesus Christ!
"One
generation shall praise Your works to another, and shall declare Your mighty
acts."
Psalm
145:4
There is an old time song which
included this lyric: "Everything old is new again." This is a concept
that is witnessed to in our Holy Orthodox Church each and every year. On August
31/September 13, the old year ends, and on September 1/14, a new liturgical
year begins! In many ways, the new year is just like the one that has passed,
with perhaps a few new additions. But the same days will occur again:
birthdays, anniversaries, fasting seasons, feasts, week days and weekends, and
so forth. To some people, this may seem tedious, especially when it comes to
Church celebrations. This is apparently evident, since so few of our faithful
take the time or make the effort to participate in them by attending the
vespers and the Divine Liturgy, even if they are quite able to do so. Some may
dismiss this year's celebrations because they commemorated them last year and
at other times in the past. Is it really necessary to remember them again this
year, and each and every year? I am certain that if your birthday were
forgotten this year that your feelings might be a little hurt and offended.
Each year is new and is blessed by God as
a new and exciting opportunity to begin fresh, to make up for what we were
lacking in the past year. Every year we again commemorate the marvelous works
of God that He has performed for us, His children. What was old and gone by,
and maybe even forgotten, is renewed and relived and celebrated
again; it is important and exhilarating to recall all of the beautiful events
in the life our Lord Jesus Christ and His Mother, the most blessed and
Ever-virgin Mary, the Theotokos. This is a concrete way of passing the Faith on
to future generations, as the Psalmist declares: "One generation shall
praise Your works to another, and shall declare Your mighty works." What
better way to proclaim them than to celebrate them in within the Church and in
our homes! Our parents, grandparents, and great-grandparents celebrated these
special days with much fervor and desire; they looked forward to them, and they
used them to teach their children the faith of their fathers. They make the
faith come to life. They are not dull, lifeless, and meaningless stories only
to be read occasionally. They are meant to be uplifting, alive, and
educational, over and over again!
The Hebrew people were instructed by God
to keep the memory of all the mighty works that He had done for them, not
merely by passively reading about them and telling stories of them, but by
actively and concretely celebrating them, which made them come to life once
again. Some early Church Fathers interpreted "Your works" of the
Psalmist as the Incarnation of the Son of God, and the "generation"
as the Church. Now that salvation has been accomplished, is it not even more
appropriate to declare these events of the New Covenant to the world and to
future generations? These Biblical and apocryphal occurrences have inspired our
theology, our reckoning of time, our iconography, our divine worship, our
hymnography, our traditions, in essence, every aspect of our Faith. We must not
neglect them! Surely, you will celebrate Pascha and the Nativity, but there is
so much more richness, spiritual richness, to be gained by observing the rest
of the feasts and fasts with the same dedication. Once again I encourage you to
make good use of the year that is beginning and resolve to incorporate each
day, each special day, in your personal life.
Even if you feel there is not enough time in your busy schedules, when
you make the time, you will be amply rewarded.
Imparting my hierarchical blessing upon
each and every one of you as we initiate this new liturgical year, I remain,
Most sincerely yours in Christ,
+ METROPOLITAN NICHOLAS
