New Year Prayers
Opening Prayer:
God, creator of our histories and destinies, look upon us as we gather at the very end of the year 2022. In your infinite goodness and love, you have created us and bestowed on us all the good we possess. You have even more graciously chosen us as a people set apart, a people your very own. You have made us travel through many and varied roads, allowed us to taste different waters, let us ponder over profound thoughts and insights, and prompted us to walk into the lives of so many people, and their joys and struggles. And we always come back to you, the source and goal of our dreams and journeys. We have no words to express our deep gratitude for the way you have plodded our feet through paths too difficult for us to travel, inspired us to speak in words that did not belong to us, moved us to share gifts we would have been too selfish to give away, strengthened us to face with courage trials and tragedies we would have been buckled under and bolstered us with fellow travellers when we despaired. We also pause to acknowledge today if we have turned our backs on you and refused to be the gifts, the persons you called us to be. We pray you to grant us the grace to begin this New Year, 2023, with Mary, Our Mother, in a spirit of hope and commitment.
Intercessions:
1. Mary is the selfless space where God became human, the silence in which God's word can be heard. Help us to be daily more receptive to God's word, we pray...
2. Mary is the devout woman who took her son to the temple to fulfil the laws. Help us to be daily faithful to God and the Church, we pray ….
3. Mary is the poor one filled with divine riches, the transparent creature through whom God's greatness shines out. Help us to be daily more transparent to God's coming into our lives, we pray...
4. Mary is the pure one through whom God's holiness took flesh, may through our purity God's love be made manifest, we pray..
5. Mary is the caring symbol who rushed to help her cousin Elizabeth, may we also be attentive to the needs of others, we pray….
6. Mary is the observant woman who pleads with her son at Cana for wine. May we intervene in the difficulties people face in life, we pray …
7. Mary is the compassionate woman who accompanies her son to Calvary. May we become part of the pains, accidents, hospitalizations, childbirths of our friends and families, we pray …
8. Mary is the true mother from the womb to the tomb even as she stood beneath the cross. May we be present to people when they go through death, loss and painful transitions in their lives, we pray ….
Prayer for New Year:
God, our loving Father, we thank you for awakening us to the gift of this new year. As 2023 unfolds before us, may we look forward to a time to learn, to grow and to love. We are also filled with gratitude for giving us Mary in a unique spiritual motherhood. May your Holy Spirit come upon us that, with Mary, we may live in the solidarity of faith, hope and love, and bear fruit for the good of communities and the world.
Offertory:
God, creator of the gifts we bring, here we offer to you the first fruits of this New Year. We have nothing that has not come from you. We surrender to you everything that awaits us in the coming year: joys & sorrows, success & failure, tears & consolation, quarrels & friendships, sickness & health. Transform these experiences and these gifts, with Mary our Mother, that we may not look forward with anxiety and fear, but with trust and hope in you..
Communion:
Lord, having filled us with the joy of your coming into our lives especially at the very beginning of this New Year, we pray that we may live according to your Holy Will. As we bid good-bye to another year, may we know that there is nothing in the world that is lasting, that lasting happiness can be found only in you. May our activities of this year begin from you and end in you. May we remain steadfast in difficulties, and patient in suffering and may our vowed life be holy, dedicated and pleasing to you.
Blessing:
May our Lord Jesus Christ, who is the beginning and end, who is the Lord of all time, who in the fullness of time became human, who lived every moment of his life in love and service, who transfigured time through his resurrection, who filled time with his spirit, who made time the meeting point of God and us, and person to person, may give us the grace to find God and our sisters and brothers this year; may he fill quietly and calmly to the brim, every moment the Father gives us. And may we spend those moments creatively, joyfully for living, loving in our Father's beautiful world.
