Like other Christian festivals, the celebration of New Years Day in the West started before the church came into existence.
At first, the Romans celebrated the beginning of the new year on March 1, not January 1. Julius Caesar instituted New Year’s Day on January 1 to honor Janus, the two-faced god who looks backwards into the old year and forwards into the new. The custom of “New Years resolutions” began in this earliest period, as the Romans made resolutions with a moral flavor: mostly to be good to others.
When Rome took on Christianity as its official faith, the Christians kept New Years Day. Only, they traded the vaguely moral emphasis for a practice of fasting and prayer aimed at living the New Year in the New Life of Christ. Soon, however, the new year celebration reverted to March 1, and this early emphasis on spiritual things dissolved. Read on…
[...] also seen my previous skeptical post on the spiritual value new year resolutions (you may also find HERE a post I have published about a year ago, about the origin of this spiritual practice). I have [...]
By: Mark Galli – Blessed Are the Poor in Virtue « Persona on 8 January 2011
at 6:59 pm