A Blessing of the New Year

As we look back on the past year and forward to the new, I’m grateful for all of you — those I have met and those I have yet to meet. I’m looking forward to the release of my new book of Celtic-style blessings in February. (Learn more about the book.)

As you bring in the new year, pray this “Blessing of the New Year” from the Scottish Highlands gathered and written down by Alexander Carmichael in the late 1800s. (I have updated the language of the prayer.) “This poem was repeated the first thing on the first day of the year. It was common throughout the Highlands and Islands.”

Beannachadh Bliadhna Uir

God, bless to me the new day,
Never bestowed to me before;
It is to bless your own presence
You have given me this time, O God.

Bless to me my eye,
May my eye bless all it sees;
I will bless my neighbor,
May my neighbor bless me.

God, give me a clean heart,
Let me not from sight of your eye;
Bless to me my family,
And bless to me my means and my home.

Carmina Gadelica, Volume 1, by Alexander Carmichael, [1900], at sacred-texts.com

Blessings to all on this new year.

Beth