December 29, 2019

Dear St. Martin of Tours Parishioners,

On New Year’s Eve or New Year’s Day it is suggested the family gather for prayers to bless the new year, in order to secure protection, good health, prosperity and peace for all in your household.

I suggest this beautiful prayer and litany of the Blessed Virgin Mary for each of your families.  There is also a place in the prayer service to ask for specific intentions.

BESEECHING THE LORD’S BLESSING FOR THE NEW YEAR

The household gathers at the Christmas tree or manger scene.

Sign of the Cross

Leader: Let us praise the Lord of days and seasons and years, saying:
Glory to God in the highest!

All: And peace to his people on earth!

Leader: Our lives are made of days and nights, of seasons and years, for we are part of a universe of suns and moons and planets. We mark ends and we make beginnings and, in all, we praise God for the grace and mercy that fill our days.

Reader: A Reading from the Book of Genesis (1: 14-19): God said: “Let there be lights in the dome of the sky, to separate day from night. Let them mark the fixed times, the days and the years, and serve as luminaries in the dome of the sky, to shed light upon the earth.” And so it happened: God made the two great lights, the greater one to govern the day, and the lesser one to govern the night; and he made the stars. God set them in the dome of the sky, to shed light upon the earth, to govern the day and the night, and to separate the light from the darkness. God saw how good it was. Evening came, and morning followed—the fourth day.

Reader: The Word of the Lord.

All: Thanks be to God.

(continued in Dash’s Den)