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A Wish for the New Year

"On New Year's Eve, at about quarter to twelve o'clock at night, the master of the house and all that are with him go about from room to room opening every door…
John CuddebackJanuary 1, 2014

“On New Year’s Eve, at about quarter to twelve o’clock at night, the master of the house and all that are with him go about from room to room opening every door and window, however cold the weather be, for thus, they say, the old year and its burdens can go out and leave everything new for hope and for the youth of the coming time. This also is a superstition, and of the best. Those who observe it trust that it is as old as Europe, with roots stretching back into foreign times.”
Hilaire Belloc, A Remaining Christmas

In this new year, may we be relieved of the burdens of the past year, while taking with us the fruits these burdens have borne. May our homes be renewed in hope, becoming ever more places where the youth of the coming time may blossom, and flourish.

Wednesday Quotes with reflections are posted at Bacon from Acorns.

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A stack of three Local Culture journals and the book 'Localism in the Mass Age'

John Cuddeback

John A. Cuddeback is a professor and chairman of the Philosophy Department at Christendom College in Front Royal, Virginia, where he has taught since 1995. He received a Ph.D. in Philosophy from The Catholic University of America under the direction of F. Russell Hittinger. He has lectured on various topics including virtue, culture, natural law, friendship, and household. His book Friendship: The Art of Happiness was republished in 2010 as True Friendship: Where Virtue Becomes Happiness. His writings have appeared in Nova et Vetera, The Thomist, and The Review of Metaphysics, as well as in several volumes published by the American Maritain Association. Though raised in what he calls an ‘archetypical suburb,’ Columbia, Maryland, he and his wife Sofia consider themselves blessed to be raising their six children in the shadow of the Blue Ridge on the banks of the Shenandoah. At the material center of their homesteading projects are heritage breed pigs, which like the pigs of Eumaeus are fattened on acorns, yielding a bacon that too few people ever enjoy. His website dedicated to the philosophy of family and household is baconfromacorns.com.

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2 comments

  • John Cuddeback
    11 years ago

    It is not a book but rather an essay. My copy is in the 1958 Penguin Books Selected Essays of Hilaire Belloc. I believe that it was first published in A Conversation with an Angel and Other Essays in 1928. Note also that James Schall, SJ devotes a chapter to this essay in his new book Remembering Belloc.

  • Edward Farrugia
    11 years ago

    I would like to purchase the book ‘Hilaire Belloc, A Remaining Christmas’ but cannot find it anywhere online. If you do know where I can buy a copy of the book, I appreciate.

    Thanks,

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