New Years and the Feast of St Basil

After a beautiful vigil, the faithful celebrated the coming of the civil new year with food, fellowship and joyous celebration. The beginning of 2022 was spent giving worship to God in Divine Liturgy for the feasts of the Circumcision of the Lord and St Basil the great followed by the annual blessing and distribution of the Vasilopita. Here is a beautiful reflection for the New Year from Archimandrite Symeon Kragiopoulos:

“At the beginning of the new year, we need to stress that only Christ gives abundant life. You live when you find Christ, when Christ comes to your soul, you love more and no one can take this life from you. And you feel that you in face have a profusion of life, and abundance of life, over and above that which you can bear. This life is God’s life, it’s true life, life that nothing can eclipse. So if we want to live, let us put Christ in our heart through faith, through prayer, and by keeping His commandments. 

As a rule, all holy souls have the feeling that God is blessing them without being worthy of it. We find not a trace of complaint. They feel that they are blessed beyond measure: ‘I believed, Lord, that Thou wouldst bless me, but it never came into my mind that Thou wouldst give me that which Thou gavest me! Have Thou mercy on me—rubbish, a scoundrel, the sinner!”