New Year New Bread

I really can't stand that stupid song known as Auld Langs Aye or whatever it's called. The ditty that's sung at midnight every New Year's Eve. Nobody I've ever asked knows what it means, yet people sing it to each other, usually while they're totally polluted (drunk), to people they've never met before, in a pub or at some monument like Shandon Steeple in Cork. I mean, how strange is that? How about doing something with our friends that has a bit of meaning.

This New Years Eve at Grace we're celebrating with a gathering we call The New Bread, in Irish it's known as An tArán Nua. As a young boy growing up in Cork I remember how on New Years Eve a lot of the adults would throw a loaf of bread at the front door of their house at the stroke of midnight. The loaf of bread is called a skull, probably because it was the bread that was given out to the poorer children at school many years ago.. The Irish word for school is pronounced skull (Scoil). By throwing the bread at the front door, they believed that they were keeping hunger from the home & family for the new year.


Yeah, I know, a load of superstition. But it was very real for some of the older people at the time, who really knew what hunger was when they were young. And rather than have a laugh at them, why not take that old superstition and turn it upside down by bringing the Gospel into it.

So on New Year's Eve, as we gather together at church, our celebration will be called The New Bread. Instead of throwing a loaf of bread at the door we'll celebrate the Breaking of Bread (Communion),the fact that the blood of Jesus is on the doorposts of our homes and of our church community, even as it was for the children of Israel at Passover. And it's there because of the cross of Calvary today. It's there for all of us who believe. I can't think of a better way to celebrate the change of year than to do it with my brothers & sisters before the Living God! If you're in Cork on New Years Eve come along. It's better than Shandon Steeple anyday!