The Father Oliver Coss Column: New year, new me?

It is also going to be filled with the habitual and the routine. No amount of believing in the difference of a new year is going to diminish the need to refill the dishwasher, or mean the dog is less likely to need walking. For some, it’s true, the hope and optimism with which many will greet the passing of a new year will contrast heavily with their own sense of foreboding and dread of what is to come. So, how do we take hope and optimism, even if its solely borrowed from others and the vibes we wish we felt, and make it into something that’ll amplify the good times and soften the bad ones?

Today is the day when Christians celebrate the St Basil the Great and St Gregory Nazianzus, two fourth-century bishop-theologians who, despite being like chalk and cheese, enjoyed a profound friendship. Basil was known as a forceful speaker and debater, and his and Gregory’s contribution during an era of great strife for Christians resulted in the upholding of the orthodox view of the divinity of Jesus Christ. This year, when we celebrate the 1700th anniversary of the Council of Nicaea we remember how significant a moment that was, as torn up with divisions and disagreements, the whole church sought together the wisdom of the Holy Spirit. “We believe”, they declared, “in one Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, begotten of the Father light of Light, very God of very God, begotten, not made, of one substance with the Father; by whom all things were made.” Some dark days led to this immense outcome, and while Basil had encouraged his friend Gregory to participate, he continued to yearn for the life of prayer that transported himself away from the pressures and fleeting happiness of life in a busy city.

What he sought was tranquillity, hints of heavenly tranquillity that he had seen glimmers of in this world, and he would write how the many distractions before him in the city had made him restless and agitated, unable to fully come to an appreciation of the goodness of the things before him. His solution was only partly one of retreat, but of finding simple ways of augmenting his life so that it was filled with music and so that it was suffused with prayer. For Christians, who have already been made new, the answer isn’t to change ourselves, but to allow God to change us. Then the songs we sing to ourselves gradually, imperceptibly, begin to take on the character of the song of the angels, whose appreciation of the thing they love cannot be diminished.

My advice for a New Year’s resolution is to seek a quiet mind: tranquillity, good music, and the acknowledgement that someone does, in all our powerlessness, have the power to help us.