A Prayer at the Beginning of the New Year
Make it, O Lord, a blessed year, a pure year in which we please You… a year in which You dwell through Your Spirit and share in the work with us.
Hold our hands and guide our thoughts from the beginning of the year to its end, so that this year may be Yours and You may rest in it.
It is a new, pure year. Do not allow us to defile it with any sins or impurities.
In every work we do this year, share in it, O Lord.
Rather, let us be silent, and let You do everything.
So that we may rejoice in all that You do and say with John the Evangelist: “All things were made through Him, and without Him nothing was made that was made.”
And let this year, O Lord, be a joyful year.
Put a smile on every face and gladden every heart. Enter by Your grace into trials, give help to those who are being tested, and grant everyone peace and rest.
Give provision to the needy, healing to the sick, and consolation to the sorrowful.
We do not ask, O Lord, for ourselves only.
Rather, we ask for everyone, because they belong to You. You created them to rejoice in You, so make them happy through You.
We ask You for the Church, for Your preaching, and for Your Word, that it may reach every heart.
And we ask You for our country and for the peace of the world, so that Your Kingdom may come in every place.
Make it, O Lord, a fruitful year, entirely filled with goodness:
Let every day in it have its work, and every hour its work. Do not allow there to be even one fruitless moment in it.
Rather, fill our lives in it with activity, work, and productivity.
Give us the blessing of productive and sanctified labor. Give us fellowship with the Holy Spirit in all our works.
We thank You, O Lord, because You have kept us alive until this moment, and have brought us into this year, so that we may bless You in it.
An article by His Holiness Pope Shenouda III, published in El-Keraza Magazine, Year Ten, Issue One, January 5, 1979.
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