December 2024: Prayers and Reflections

Prayers and Reflections
December 2024/ January 2025

The Pope’s Monthly Intention

December: For Pilgrims of Hope: Let us pray that this Jubilee Year strengthen our faith, helping us to recognise the Risen Christ in our daily lives, and that it may transform us into pilgrims of Christian Hope.

January: For the Right to an Education: Let us pray for migrants, refugees and those affected by war, that their right to an education, which is necessary to build a better world, might always be respected.

 

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Children’s Prayer to St Nicholas
Feast: 6 December

Dear St Nicholas, so kind and true,
on this special day, we turn to you.
With gifts and joy, you fill our hearts,
bless us now as this day starts.
Guide us with your gentle hand,
help us spread love across the land.
May we share and care each day,
in your spirit, we laugh and play.
Thank you, St Nicholas, up above,
for your kindness, grace, and love.
On this day, and all year through,
we celebrate the joy you bring, it’s true. Amen.

www.columban.org

 

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World Day of Prayer for Peace
1 January 2025

Theme: Forgive us our trespasses; grant us your peace.

 

Forgive us for the war, Lord.
Lord Jesus, son of God, have mercy on us sinners.
Lord Jesus, born under bombs, have mercy on us.
Lord Jesus, dead in the arms of a mother, have mercy on us.
Lord Jesus, in the 20-year-olds sent to the frontline, have mercy on us.
Lord Jesus, who continues to see hands armed with weapons under the shadow of the cross, forgive us, Lord.
Forgive us if, not content with the nails with which we pierced your hand, we continue to drink from the blood of the dead torn apart by weapons.
Forgive us if these hands that you had created to protect have been turned into instruments of death.
Forgive us, Lord, if we continue to kill our brother, if we continue like Cain to take the stones from our field to kill Abel.
Forgive us if we go out of our way to justify cruelty, if, in our pain, we legitimise the cruelty of our actions. Forgive us war, Lord.
Lord Jesus Christ, son of God, we implore you to stop the hand of Cain, enlighten our conscience, let not our will be done, do not abandon us to our own doing. Stop us, Lord, stop us, and when you have stopped the hand of Cain, take care of him also. He is our brother.
O Lord, stop the violence. Stop us, Lord.
Amen.

Composed by Archbishop Domenico Battaglia of Naples

 

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  Family blessing for a Christmas Tree

God of all creation,
we praise you for this tree
which brings beauty and memories
and the promise of life to our home.
May your blessing be upon
all who gather around this tree,
all who keep the Christmas festival by its lights.
We wait for the coming of the Christ,
the days of everlasting justice and of peace.
You are our God, living and reigning,
for ever and ever. R. Amen.

The lights of the tree are then turned on.

 catholicnewsagency.com

 

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New Year Prayer

Eternal God: in your purpose our lives are lived, and by your grace our hopes are bright. Be with us in the coming year, forgiving, leading, and saving; so that we may walk without fear, in the way of Jesus Christ.

Presbyterian Book of Worship

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The Jubilee Prayer 2025

Father in heaven,
may the faith you have given us
in your son, Jesus Christ, our brother, 
and the flame of charity enkindled 
in our hearts by the Holy Spirit,
reawaken in us the blessed hope
for the coming of your Kingdom.

 

May your grace transform us
into tireless cultivators of the seeds of the Gospel.
May those seeds transform from within both humanity and the whole cosmos
in the sure expectation 
of a new heaven and a new earth,
when, with the powers of Evil vanquished,
your glory will shine eternally.

 

May the grace of the Jubilee
reawaken in us, Pilgrims of Hope,
a yearning for the treasures of heaven.
May that same grace spread 
the joy and peace of our Redeemer
throughout the earth.
To you our God, eternally blessed,
be glory and praise for ever.

Amen.

Pope Francis

 

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