At the Threshold of Time: A New Year’s Word from the Silence of the Desert

Christ is Born! Glorify Him!

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ,

With thankful and reverent hearts, we greet you at the threshold of the New Year 2026, which we welcome today in the light-filled Feast of the Circumcision of Our Lord and the commemoration of our beloved patron, Saint Basil the Great.

From our humble Hermitage, situated within the wide and prayerful stillness of the Sonoran Desert, we lift our voices in gratitude to the Lord of Life, who in His mercy has preserved us and granted us to see the turning of another year. Here, where the ancient saguaro cactus stands like a sentinel of patience beneath vast skies, silence becomes a teacher. The desert strips life down to what is essential, breath, water, light, and in doing so, it gently teaches the soul to listen again for God.

This stillness so closely mirrors the desert homes of the early Desert Fathers of Egypt, Palestine, and Syria, places where the faithful fled noise and pretension in order to encounter truth. Though separated by centuries and geography, the same spirit lives here: a call to repentance, to simplicity, and to watchful prayer. In the Sonoran Desert, we learn again that silence is not empty, but full, full of mercy, presence, and invitation.

As we look back upon the year now completed, we count our many blessings with gratitude and acknowledge our failings with humility. The desert does not flatter us; it reveals us. It invites us to lay down what is unnecessary and to recommit ourselves, without excuse or delay, to Christ, to His Holy Church, and to the narrow path that leads to life.

Entering this New Year, we renew our resolve to continue the work entrusted to this small Hermitage. With God’s help, we will persevere in serving those most in need:

Our Veterans, who carry the lasting wounds of war and service;
the underhoused and those suffering food insecurity;
our immigrant brothers and sisters, seeking refuge from violence and crushing poverty;
our Indigenous brothers and sisters, whose historical wounds still cry out for healing and justice;
orphans and children of war across the world;
and our Orthodox brothers and sisters in Ukraine, who continue to endure the heavy burden of conflict as the war enters its fourth year.

We remember with particular sobriety that this is the fourth New Year the people of Ukraine meet amid the trials of full-scale war. For the third year in a row, we continue to pray not only for an end to the violence, for healing of bodies and souls, for the reunification of families, and for the safe return of defenders to their homes, but also for peace and the restoration of brotherly love among all Orthodox Churches in Ukraine. We pray for the healing of wounds created not only by war, but also by deep jurisdictional tensions that have burdened the faithful and weakened our common witness.

We further lift our prayers that this New Year may become a year of healing for Orthodox Christians throughout the world, a year in which estrangement gives way to reconciliation, suspicion yields to trust, and all of us return together to Christ as the true and unshakable beacon of hope revealed in the Orthodox faith. May unity be sought not through force or triumph, but through humility, repentance, and love.

Like the desert paths, often unseen, yet sure, we place our trust in the Holy Spirit to guide us where we are needed most. We seek not noise, but faithfulness; not influence, but obedience.

As we stand beneath desert skies at the beginning of this New Year, may God grant us peace of heart, kindness toward one another, wisdom in our choices, good health according to His will, and every blessing, spiritual and earthly, needed for our salvation.

To Him be all glory, honor, and worship, together with His unoriginate Father and the life-creating Holy Spirit, now and ever, and unto ages of ages.

With God, we are victorious,

The Monks of Saint Basil of the Desert Eastern Orthodox Hermitage
Tucson, Arizona