New Year's Prayers

Feast of The Holy Name

January 1, A.D. 2010

My friends,

First, we do not worship the calendar. We are not believers in astrology, horoscopes or numerology. Every day is the day that the Lord has made. Calendars are useful tools, but New Years Day is not a Holy Day.

Today is the Feast of the Holy Name of Jesus. A Holy Day indeed!

One good thing about today, is the opportunity to reflect on the past and to make a deliberate choice about the future. New Year’s Resolutions are the conventional expression of this contemplation, but let’s face it, they are more often objects of regret than milestones of change.

Instead of New Year’s Resolutions this year, try New Year’s Prayers!

Better yet, Prayers invoking The Holy Name!

What is the difference? Let’s see, which do you think is more likely to work?

“This year I will exercise more and eat better.” (one of my perennial favorites – and failures.)

Or this:

O Lord, in the coming year I pray that you will help me to be a better steward of this body, which you knit together in my mother’s womb and gave to me in order that I may do the work of Christ in the world. Guard me from surrendering to the temptations of sloth and gluttony; and give me daily the resolve to care for my body as your handmade gift, in the holy name of Jesus. Amen.

“This year I will quit/cut-down on _________” (insert vice-of-choice here)

Or this:

Almighty God I confess that I am helpless alone to battle my addiction to _________. I call on your mercy to take this unwholesome appetite away from me. Bind my desire for that which is destructive, and show me a path to a healthy and holy life, in the holy name of Jesus. Amen.

And for all of us:

I consecrate this year to You Lord Christ. I invoke God the Holy Spirit to come into my life in renewed power and sovereignty every day of this year. Whenever I wander or stray Lord, draw my eyes back to the Cross that I may never forget that I have been bought for a price, paid in blood by my Christ, in whose holy name I pray. Amen.

                                                                                    God loves you & so do I, - every day of the year,

                                                                                                                        Hoss+