The Byzantine liturgical year begins on 1 September. A brief inspection of the texts read at the services for this day indicates the internal attitude which the Church wishes to inculcate in us at the beginning of the year.
At Vespers for 1 September, which, in Byzantine style is celebrated on the evening of 31 August [because that is when the day begins according to this reckoning, not 12 o’clock midnight], there are three readings from the Old Testament. The first is from the Prophet Isaiah (61, 1-9: ‘The Spirit of the Lord is upon me because he as anointed me… they are a seed blessed of God’). This is the passage read by the Lord- and applied to Himself- in the synagogue in Nazareth, as we hear in the liturgy on the morning of 1 September. There are some words of Isaiah’s which don’t come into the passage quoted by the Lord, but which are nevertheless worthy of particular attention: ‘And they shall build on ancient wastelands, they shall resurrect what was formerly made desolate and restore cities abandoned for generations’ (61, 4). There’s a message of hope here for those who consciously bring to the threshold of the new year a soul full of desolation and barrenness: our spiritual desert can be salvaged in the year which is beginning. The prophet also informs us what God will do for those who are afflicted: He will give them ‘glory instead of ashes, the unguent of joy to those who mourn, the garment of glory instead of the spirit of sloth’.
