Happy New Year! May you know love, hope and joy throughout 2024, and when trials come, strength to bear them with Christ’s help.

 There's nothing that brings about hope for change and new beginnings quite like the transition from one year to the next. That's why we make New Year’s resolutions. Come 2024, you might have goals of focusing on your physical or mental health, working on your finances, or improving relationships in your life. But as we bid farewell to the old and welcome the possibilities of the future, there's no better time to turn to God in prayer.

Here are two beautifully crafted New Year prayers to help us begin the year with a renewed sense of faith and hope for what God has in store for us, our families and our community.

A Prayer of Surrender to God

Father, I abandon myself into your hands.

Do with me whatever you will. Whatever you may do, I thank you.

I am ready for all, I accept all. Let only your will be done in me, and in all your creatures.

Into your hands I commend my spirit. I offer it to you with all the love that is in my heart.

For I love you, Lord, and so want to give myself, to surrender myself into your hands, without reserve and with boundless confidence, for you are my Father.

Amen.

—Charles de Foucauld

A prayer for Love

O God of steadfast love, trusting you, we devote our hearts to learning and our lives to walking.

Teach us truth, that we may walk with courage.

Teach us mercy, that we may walk with humility.

Teach us forgiveness, that we may walk with compassion.

Teach us grace, that we may walk with strength.

Teach us wonder, that we may walk with praise.

Teach us goodness, that we may walk with those in need.

O God of steadfast love, learning from you, may we walk well.

Amen.

—J. Bradley Wigger