Dom
Prosper Guéranger:
The civil year ends today. At midnight, a New Year will begin, as the world counts time, and the present one will sink into the abyss of eternity. It is one step further on in our lives and brings us nearer to that end of all things, which Saint Peter says is at hand (1 Peter iv. 7). The Liturgy which begins a new Ecclesiastical Year on the First Sunday of Advent has no special prayers in the Roman Church for the beginning of the Year on the First of January but her spirit — which takes an interest in everything affecting the well-being of individuals or of society at large — her spirit is that we should sometime in the course of this last day of the Year make a fervent act of thanksgiving to God for the blessings He has bestowed on us during the past twelve months.
Rome sets us the example. Today the Sovereign Pontiff goes in state to the Gesù (or, as we should call it, Jesus’ Church) and there assists at a solemn Te Deum. The Benediction of the Blessed Sacrament follows it, blessing, as it were, the public act of thanksgiving, and giving a pledge of blessings for the coming Year. The only Church that has given a Liturgical expression to the sentiments which the close of the Year inspires is that of the Mozara.bic Rite in which there occurs the following beautiful Preface, which we gladly offer to our readers. It is part of the Mass of the Sunday which immediately precedes the Feast of the Epiphany.
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It is meet and just that we should give thanks to you, O Holy Lord, Eternal Father, Almighty God, through Jesus Christ your Son, our Lord, who being before all time born of you, God the Father, did, together with you and the Holy Ghost, create all seasons and deigned Himself to be born in time from the womb of the Virgin Mary. He, though the eternal One, established the fixed revolutions of years through which this world run its course, and divided the year by regular and suitable changes of seasons with which the sun should in orderly variety mark the round of the year as it ran the measured circuit of its course. For we this day dedicate by the gifts we offer the close of the past year and the commencement of that which follows to Him, the living God, by whose mercy we have lived through the years gone by and are about to commence the beginning of another. Since, therefore, a sacred devotion in which we all share has this year brought us together to invoke this your Divine Son, we pour out our humble prayers to you, O God the Father, that whereas you have consecrated the present portion of the year by the birth of this same your Son, you may vouchsafe to make this year a happy one to us, and to give us to spend it in your service. Fill, too, the earth with its fruits, and deliver our souls and bodies from sickness and sin. Take away scandal, defeat our enemy, keep down famine and drive far from our country all such events as would bring evil upon her. Through our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.
