Bonhoeffer's "New Year" Prayer

The Rocket, by Edward Middleton Manigault, 1909

A New Year hymn based on a poem written for all those for whom “the old year still torments our hearts” has been introduced into the Anglican church in a new hymnal.

For some, reflecting on the passing of another year might be an occasion for joy and anticipation. For others an occasion for despair and trepidation. For many, perhaps, a mixture of both?

What has become known as “New Year 1945” was written by Dietrich Bonhoeffer for his mother and fiancée while captive in the main Gestapo prison in Prinz-Albrecht-Strasse in Berlin in the last months of 1944. Eberhard Bethge, Bonhoeffer’s friend and biographer, describes the text as the last “theological witness from Bonhoeffer’s hand” and gives it the title “Powers of Good”.

Surrounded by the screams of other inmates being tortured -  and doubtless enduring his own physical discomfort - Bonhoeffer’s poem does not seek to hide the horrors of the world or withdraw from its brutality. Its realism speaks to all those for whom “the old year still torments our hearts.”

Bonhoeffer does not offer cheap platitudes or the illusion of false hope. All he offers is all that any of us can truly offer - the possibility of faith in the enduring grace of God.

“While all the powers of Good aid and attend us,
boldly we’ll face the future, be it what may.
At even, and at morn, God will befriend us,
and oh, most surely each new year’s day!”

The recent release of “The Revised English Hymnal” has introduced into Anglican churches a hymn based on the text of Bonhoeffer’s poem which has long formed part of Lutheran hymnals and is often sung at this time of year.

The English translation by the Methodist hymn writer Fred Pratt Green (© 1974 Hope Publishing Company) was commissioned by the World Council of Churches. The text can be found online sung to a variety of tunes, including Highwood (a great melody but for me doesn’t quite capture the spirit of the text) Finlandia and, more frequently Parry’s ‘Intercessor’ (the tune offered in the Revised English Hymnal). The German version of the text ‘Von Guten Mächten Wunderbar Geborgen’ is most often sung to a melody by Siegfried Fietz as in this video by a lockdown choir – or here by the composer himself.

The text of Bonhoeffer’s poem, translated by Geoffrey Winthrop Young, which appears in ‘The Cost of Discipleship’ which was published after Bonhoeffer’s death:

With every power for good to stay and guide me,
comforted and inspired beyond all fear,
I’ll live these days with you in thought beside me,
and pass, with you, into the coming year.

The old year still torments our hearts, unhastening:
the long days of our sorrow still endure.
Father, grant to the soul thou hast been chastening
that thou hast promised—the healing and the cure.

Should it be ours to drain the cup of grieving
even to the dregs of pain, at thy command,
we will not falter, thankfully receiving
all that is given by thy loving hand.

But, should it be thy will once more to release us
to life’s enjoyment and its good sunshine,
that we’ve learned from sorrow shall increase us
and all our life be dedicate as thine.

Today, let candles shed their radiant greeting:
lo, on our darkness are they not thy light,
leading us haply to our longed-for meeting?
Thou canst illumine e’en our darkest night.

When now the silence deepens for our harkening,
grant we may hear thy children’s voices raise
from all the unseen world around us darkening,
their universal paean, in thy praise.

While all the powers of Good aid and attend us,
boldly we’ll face the future, be it what may.
At even, and at morn, God will befriend us,
and oh, most surely each new year’s day!


This text of the hymn, based on Bonhoeffer’s poem, by Fred Pratt Green, (© 1974 Hope Publishing Company):

By gracious powers so wonderfully sheltered,
and confidently waiting, come what may,
we know that God is with us night and morning,
and never fails to greet us each new day.

Yet is this heart by its old foe tormented,
still evil days bring burdens hard to bear;
oh, give our frightened souls the sure salvation
for which, O Lord, you taught us to prepare.

And when this cup you give is filled to brimming
with bitter suffering, hard to understand,
we take it thankfully and without trembling,
out of so good and so beloved a hand.

Yet when again in this same world you give us
the joy we had, the brightness of your sun,
we shall remember all the days we lived through,
and our whole life shall then be yours alone.

By gracious powers so faithfully protected,
so quietly, so wonderfully near,
I’ll live each day in hope, with you beside me,
and go with you through every coming year.

Image : The Rocket, by Edward Middleton Manigault, 1909