I wonder how many people know that for centuries New Year’s Day was celebrated on the feast of the Annunciation, 25 March. In the ancient world a great variety of dates were chosen as New Year’s Day at different times. The Romans, who liked things to be well organised, introduced a new and more accurate calendar in 46 B.C. and decided that January 1 was to be the official new year. With the breakdown of the Roman Empire, however, even that date was not consistently recognised as New Year and the Church suggested different dates, with March 25 probably the favourite. March 25 was nine months before we celebrated the birth of Christ on December 25, and marked God’s great intervention into human history, when he began to make all things new again. It marked each new year as the Year of the Lord, when God was with us, and we could begin again in hope and be assured of God’s blessing on our endeavours. Not a bad way of beginning a new year.
That custom enjoyed favour for close on a thousand years and was changed when the Church recognised how the existing calendar was inaccurate, and some ten days were unaccounted for. So in 1582 the Gregorian calendar, called after the Pope who introduced it, restored January 1 as New Year’s Day. The Catholic countries adopted the new calendar immediately, but the Protestant countries held on to the older and less scientific one. Ireland – as part of the British system – still celebrated new year on March 25 in 1751, but in 1752 we accepted the Gregorian calendar, and celebrated new year on January 1.
The Church may have abandoned the Feast of the Annunciation, March 25, as new year, but ironically the financial new year still begins on that day in much of the world. It is still the beginning of the fiscal year in Britain, and was the beginning of the fiscal year in Ireland too until 2001. The retention of March 25 is not so obvious, as the ten missing days in the old calendar have been added – so as not to lose any taxation – and so the financial new year appears as April 5.
The feast of the Annunciation marks a most important day in human history and affects our outlook on life. We have recently suffered great financial suffering at the hands of world-wide greedy bankers, and people would much prefer that our times were under the egis of a God who hears the cries of the poor. May we hear God’s call and answer ‘yes’ with Mary on March 25, and start another ‘new year’ in hope.
John Looby, S.J., Editor