Happy New Year, everyone! 🙂 I’m so sorry I haven’t been around lately — the past few days have been crazy busy but for all the good reasons. Mostly, I have been spending time with my family — our own little family, and also members of our extended family. Reunions can be stressful I know, but at the end of the day they are still a great reminder of how blessed we are.
So anyway, this post was meant to be one where I write the highlights of 2013 and my intention for the New Year, complete with my “one verse” and “one word” (more on those later) BUT the blog was down for the past four hours. I have been trying to blog since 1 a.m. on the morning of New Year’s Day — I was trying to take advantage of the fact that everyone else was asleep! But now all I want to do is sleep, too! Ha, ha! So I’ll write that post another time (this week, I promise)!
In the meantime, from my family to yours, we hope that you’re enjoying the Christmas season so far (we’re celebrating 19 days of Christmas this liturgical year) and we declare a year full of superabundant blessings for all of us this 2014!
I leave you now with an article I wrote lately for the homeschool newsletter that I am in charge of, titled “5 Ways to a More Blessed New Year.” I pray that it will truly help you in making this year one of your most blessed yet! 🙂
As we face the New Year, let us strive for a better, brighter, more blessed year by putting the following “faith steps” in action — these will surely help us, not just in homeschooling, but in other aspects of our lives, too.
1. Choose one Bible verse for the year.
If you haven’t started doing this yet, this would be a wonderful tradition to do before the start of the New Year: get your Bible, take some time to pray and reflect on God’s Word, and choose one Bible verse that you feel God wants you to use as your “guiding verse” for the year.
Choosing a guiding verse based on God’s Word is a wonderful way to “root” one’s self in His will and plan.
Once you have chosen your verse for the year, memorize it and put it into writing. You can even make signs or posters of it to hang in places where you can see it, so that you can be reminded of it every day.
2. Choose one word for the year.
From your Bible verse for the year, choose one word as your “word for the year.” For example, if your verse for the year is Philippians 4:13, i.e. “I can do all things through Christ who gives me strength,” you can choose the word “Strong” or “Strength.” Every time you feel “lost” during the year, or are in need of guidance or encouragement, go back to your one word. Meditate on it, memorize it, live it.
3. Pray the Blessing for the New Year as a family.
As Catholics, we are blessed to have rich traditions and prayers as taught by the Church. Make your family’s New Year’s Day a bit different by praying the Blessing for the New Year together. You can find more details — including prayers you can use — on CatholicCulture.com, specifically at this page: http://www.catholicculture.org/culture/liturgicalyear/prayers/view.cfm?id=971
Don’t forget that January 1, New Year’s Day, is also the Solemnity of Mary, Mother of God, and is a holy day of obligation for us Catholics — so be sure to add attending Holy Mass together to your list of family activities for that day.
4. Do the Blessing of the Home on Epiphany.
Two years ago, our family was given an Epiphany House Blessing kit. We’ve since kept the tradition of blessing our home every year on the Feast of the Epiphany. It is a beautiful tradition that everyone in the family looks forward to, especially the kids.
If you have never done the Epiphany House Blessing, CatholicCulture.com has a detailed guide here: http://www.catholicculture.org/culture/liturgicalyear/prayers/view.cfm?id=49
5. Commit to a weekly “spiritual practice” as individuals and as a family.
Most of us probably know that in order to have a strong family, we need to be “firm in the Faith.” We need spiritual guidance, support and encouragement, whether or not we are homeschooling (in my case, it’s especially because we are homeschooling!). Committing to a weekly “spiritual practice” as individuals and a family will certainly help us find the guidance, support and encouragement we need. This could be in the form of attending a prayer gathering like The Feast, or setting aside a special family prayer time every weekend, or both.
Of course, there are certainly more than five ways to have a more blessed year ahead. It is my hope and prayer that the above-mentioned practices will merely be “jump-starters” for your New Year. Here’s to a fantastic 2014 for us all! 🙂
[…] my previous post, I listed five simple things we could all do to make this year one of our most blessed yet. The first two were about choosing one Bible verse for the year, and choosing one word based on […]