New Year’s prayer service
As we begin a new year, we ask the Lord to bless His creation with peace and bestow His grace over each one of us.
Year in and year out, we bid farewell to the previous year and anticipate the arrival of a new one with hope.
As we look back at the past year, we regret the things left undone, or what could but didn’t happen. We lament deeply about any corrupt misdeeds that took place last year or that we didn’t accomplish anything that could afford us to call it “the year of the Lord” or “a blessed year” by the word of the New Testament.
We start a new year with the hope that the Lord blesses the earth with His peace and blesses each of us with His grace.
On New Year’s eve according to the old calendar, a prayer service took place at the Trinity Cathedral of the Seraphim-Diveyevo monastery where the faithful sent up a universal prayer for themselves, their family and dear ones, our country and the whole world.
The usual set of beginning prayers was followed by the reading of Psalm 64 containing the following words: “Hearken unto us, O God our Savior, Thou hope of all the ends of the earth and of them that be far off at sea.”