The Eve of New Year’s Day
The Eve of New Year’s Day
We congratulate the whole world on a new year that is dawning upon it, and we hope that it will be a happy and blessed year.
And we observe and see everywhere the spiritual way in which they spend New Year’s Eve.
For the church is crowded everywhere with people, and all have resolved to spend New Year’s Eve in the church, during holy hours, with a spiritual program that has its effect on the soul.
Thus, the first house they have visited in the new year is the house of God, and the first minutes they have spent in the new year have been in prayer.
The lights are turned off one minute before midnight. And every person lifts his heart to God with silent prayers, in which he presents his requests to God, confesses all his sins in the past year, and also gives thanks for all of God’s mercies in it, and asks God for strength and help for a better spiritual life. He also asks the Lord for the sake of others—his relatives, friends, and acquaintances—and for the sake of his homeland and the whole world.
The private prayers come to an end, and the church is illuminated, as a new year has begun with prayer.
And the vigil continues until morning with a spiritual program.
And since everyone wants to partake of the Holy Mysteries in the holiness of the beginning of the year, therefore they prepare for this from now, for a pure beginning through examining the self and confession.
The priests devote entire days during which they dedicate themselves to receiving confessions, for the comfort of people’s consciences, in order to begin a new year with a holy life.
And every person sets for himself a spiritual plan, with the guidance of his father of confession, in order to begin the year with a spiritual order and commitment, saying according to the Agpeya prayers:
Let us make a good beginning..
And the churches prepare a spiritual program for New Year’s Eve that includes sermons, meditations, hymns, and melodies, and some enrich it with some audiovisual means in films or slides presented to the people. And everyone prays together the Midnight Prayer, along with other prayers that are interspersed throughout the program.
This is how the spiritual people conduct themselves.
Tags: New Year, Prayer
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