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New Year
31/December/2007 Filed in: Jottings
For many people, Christmas is over with the turkey and plum pudding on Christmas Day itself. For Christians, however, Christmas extends, first to the Octave (1 January) then to Epiphany (Twelfth Night), and only really comes to an end with the Presentation (2 February). So, the old year gives way to the new not just in the middle of the Christmas festivities, but very near their beginning. 1 January has always been linked to the Lord's birth, through the old feasts of the Circumcision or the Holy Name and, now again, the Solemnity of Mary the Mother of God. It is good to begin the year with a reaffirmation of God's involvement in human history, a reminder that his plans for us are for weal not woe.