Dear Diary,
As this year closes, I find myself overwhelmed; not with anxiety about what’s ending or uncertainty about what’s beginning, but with gratitude. Tonight, my heart remembers. It remembers faithfulness when I was faithless, presence when I felt alone, light breaking through darkness I thought would never end.
Here is what I am grateful for as 2025 draws to its close.
For Ordinary Graces
This year, God taught me through the unremarkable. I’m grateful for three hundred and sixty-five mornings of waking to chapel bells, for the rhythm of prayer marking each day like a heartbeat. Office of the Readings, Lauds, Meditation, Midday Prayer, Mass, Vespers and Compline — this liturgical breathing sustained me even when I barely noticed it. I’m grateful for meals eaten in silence and meals shared with laughter. I’m grateful for my cell, for the crucifix above my bed that reminds me each night and morning that I am loved beyond measure, for the books on my small shelf: Scripture, Teresa, John of the Cross, Thérèse – companions who never tire of my questions. God hides in the ordinary, and I’m grateful He let me find Him there.
For Dark Nights
John of the Cross promised that “in the dark night, the soul finds its surest path,” and 2025 proved him right. I’m grateful for the months when prayer felt empty, when God seemed absent, when my vocation felt like a burden rather than a gift. There were desert days. I showed up for prayer feeling nothing, receiving nothing, understanding nothing. Now, at year’s end, I see what I couldn’t see then: God was there all along, working beneath the surface, purifying my motivations, weaning me from spiritual consolations. The darkness taught me that prayer isn’t about feeling but about faithfulness. I’m grateful that God cared more about my transformation than my comfort.
For Companionship
I’m grateful for the friars I live alongside — imperfect like me but always brothers. I’m grateful for the times of shared joy, for examples of commitment and words of encouragement, and enriching conversations and new friendships. I’m grateful for the friction that polishes rough edges, for learning to apologise and mean it. Community is the crucible where my false self dies and my true self, hidden with Christ in God, slowly emerges.
For Small Resurrections
This year held deaths — death of expectations about how my life would look, death of the certainty I once had, death of ongoing endeavours and future plans. But I’m learning what the Gospel insists: unless a grain of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains alone. But if it dies, it bears much fruit. I’m grateful for the small resurrections that followed small deaths. New understanding after confusion. Deeper prayer after dryness. Stronger community after conflict. New missions after failure. Elizabeth of the Trinity prayed: “O my God, Trinity whom I adore, help me forget myself entirely so to establish myself in You.” This year, bit by bit, I’m learning what she meant. I’m dying to the self I thought I should be and discovering the self God desires I become.
For the Incarnation
Above all, I’m grateful that God became flesh. That the Word entered time. That God knows what it means to be cold, hungry, tired, misunderstood, alone. Every struggle this year; every doubt, every darkness, every disappointment, Christ has known. He is not a distant God observing my fumbling from heaven’s heights. He is Emmanuel, God-with-us, who entered our mess and called it home. I’m grateful that when I bring my broken, confused, inconsistent self to prayer, I’m bringing it to One who understands completely, who meets me exactly where I am and loves me into where I’m going. Thérèse of Lisieux wrote: “Jesus does not demand great actions from us but simply surrender and gratitude.” This year has taught me both. Surrender to what I cannot control, cannot understand, cannot fix. And gratitude for the God who can, who does, who will — in His time, in His way.
Prayer of Gratitude
Lord Jesus Christ,
As this year closes, I stand before You with empty hands and a full heart. Thank You for every gift of 2025 – the obvious and the hidden, the welcome and the unwanted, the joys that made me sing and the sorrows that taught me to pray.
Thank You for ordinary graces: daily bread, daily prayer, daily mercy. Thank You for this community, this vocation, this narrow path that leads to life. Thank You for loving me when I was unlovable, holding me when I tried to run, finding me when I was lost.
Thank You for dark nights that taught me faith isn’t feeling. Thank You for the cross that teaches me love isn’t ease. Thank You for becoming flesh so I could touch You, know You, love You.
As I cross into 2026, I bring nothing but this: myself, such as I am, with all my contradictions and questions and hopes. Make of me what You will. I am Yours.
Through Mary’s intercession, who taught us to say “yes” to mysteries we cannot comprehend, I surrender this past year and the coming one into Your hands.
Amen.
If you would like to thank God for 2025 and welcome the new year along with us, you are most welcome to join us online on Sunday, December 31, for the Vigil Mass at 11:00pm (UK time) and the Prayer Vigil at 11:45pm (UK time) that will carry us across the threshold into 2026. Register to join here.
Let us pray together. Let us give thanks together. Let us step into God’s future together, trusting that His mercies are new every morning and every year.