“It is right and fitting that we should give thanks to thee, holy Lord, eternal Father, almighty God, through Jesus Christ thy Son, our Lord. He, begotten before time was, by thee, God the Father, created time with thee and the Holy Spirit, and deigned himself to be born in the process of time from the womb of the Virgin Mary. Himself everlasting, He has divided years into recurrent seasons, marking the passage of time and the circuit of the year by measured changes in the course of the sun. Today we dedicate to that same living God the end of the year now over and the beginning of the next. It is He who has brought us through the past year, He who enables us to begin another. God the Father, Thou who hast consecrated the present season to Thy Son’s nativity, grant that this coming year may be propitious for us and that we may pass its days in the peace of Your service”.