If we want this year to be a New Year, not just in date, but in our lives, then we must learn from the past but live in the present with openness to the future.  A New Year means new lenses, new attitude, new openness to the God who loves us always in a new way. We hear the words of Isaiah the prophet: "Remember not the events of the past, the things of long ago consider not; See, I am doing something new! Now it springs forth, do you not perceive it"? (Isaiah 43:18-19) This is the lens we need this year to view our different experiences. God is doing something new. We need to ask God for the grace to perceive his plan in our lives in the present moment.