New Year - Another Prayer

A New Year Prayer

Holy Father,

God of our yesterdays, our today, and our tomorrows.

We praise You for Your unequalled greatness.
 

Thank You for the year behind us and for the year ahead.

Help us in Your new year, Father, to fret less and laugh more.
To teach our children to laugh by laughing with them.
To teach others to love by loving them.

Knowing, when Love came to the stable in Bethlehem, He came for us.

So that Love could be with us, and we could know You.
That we could share Love with others.

Prayers: New Year, Christmas, etc

Holiday Prayer Guide1

New Year Prayer - Flash

Jan 1: Mary, Mother of God and New Year

Mary, Mother of God and New Year

Anecdote: There is a beautiful, little story about a long, tedious train journey made, one Christmas day, by some elderly residents of a nursing home who were on their way to a vacation spot. At one station, a young mother with a small child entered the train. The child smiled at all the grim faces around him and began moving from one lap to another talking, shouting with joy and chatting with everyone. Instantly, the grim and silent atmosphere in the train was changed to one of joy and happiness. Today we remember with joy and gratitude, how Mary and her Divine Son Jesus transformed a hopeless, joyless and sinful world into a place of joy and happiness. 

Holy Family - C:

 Introduction by the Celebrant
(Liturgical Prayers of the day are included at the end)

A. In The House Of The Father

It may come as a real surprise to us to hear Jesus ask Mary and Joseph: "Why were you looking for me? Did you not know that I had to be where my Father is?" Even Joseph and Mary had still to learn and to grow in their faith. Like the Holy Family, our families and each of us have also to grow in the faith. Perhaps it is through painful trials like the one of Mary and Joseph that our faith may become mature. We too are asked: Did you not know...?

Nativity - Dec 25

25 December 2012: the Nativity of the Lord

At the outset let me express my sincere and prayerful wishes of the Nativity of the Lord. May the promises of hope, joy, peace, love of his birth be fulfilled in each of us now and always.
it happened during the carol service. A young lad dressed like a Santa Claus and accompanied us. When the carols are sung he would dance and entertain the household and finally would distribute sweets to all. It so happened that in a house he was dancing very well. A little child who was looking at the Santa Claus was smiling and trying to imitate the steps. When we were about to leave the Santa Claus asked for a glass of water. The mother of the house extended a glass. The boy removed his Santa mask to drink water. As soon as he removed the mask, the little child, who was smiling and dancing started crying and went to hide behind its mother. The mask made him laugh. The unmasking made him cry. It happens in our relationships too. People tend to like us or we tend to like them not for what they are but for the masks they were. The humble birth of Jesus brings to us the face of God. In Jesus there was no mask. That is why people were afraid to take him in – in their inn and in their hearts.

Christmas 2012 - Homilies and Stories

Nativity of Our Lord Jesus Christ - Year C

John Littleton

Gospel Reflection

Christmas has finally Come. We rejoice that the Word has become flesh, that God the Son has become human while remaining divine. There is no more waiting because the Messiah has arrived and now is the time liberation from our enslavement to sin. But this is n surprising since, in the Hebrew Scriptures ( Christians call the Old Testament), this arrival had b prophesied for many centuries before the birth of Christ.