Make a Spiritual Plan for Your New Year

tonytangebirah
2 days ago
6 min read

The new year rarely begins with fireworks in the soul.

More often, it arrives quietly—carrying the fatigue of the year just ended.

We step into January still holding unanswered prayers, lingering worries, and the uneasy sense that life somehow keeps moving faster than our hearts can keep up.

And so, we make resolutions.

Not just to be more productive or disciplined, but to be calmer. Happier. Less anxious. More present—to our families, our work, and ourselves.

We long for a year where stress no longer dominates our days, and where joy feels steadier, less fragile, less dependent on circumstances.

At the heart of these desires lies something profoundly spiritual, even if we do not always name it as such: a longing to live closer to God.

Yet many resolutions falter not because we lack effort, but because they lack direction.

We want peace, but we do not know where to root it.

We want happiness, but we keep searching for it in things that cannot sustain it.

This is where the Church offers us something quietly powerful and deeply practical: a Plan of Life.

A Spiritual Plan That Brings Order and Peace

One of the concrete manifestations of growing closer to God is by adopting a clear and practical Plan of Life.

The aim is not perfection, but direction—to improve our lives and make them more pleasing to God.

A Plan of Life is part of the “training plan” Opus Dei offers people to help them seek, find, and love Christ in ordinary life. It is, in many ways, a spiritual workout plan for growing in happiness with God.

A Plan of Life ought to bring order to whatever is disordered in our lives.

Due to sin, our lives are often marked by confusion, inner fragmentation, and restlessness.

Opposing this disorder is the Holy Spirit, who gently restores right order. From this order flows peace of heart, mind, and soul.

St Augustine famously defined peace as “the tranquility of order.”

So, as we begin a new year, the real question is not simply what will I do differently, but rather: What order will I bring into my life so that God can act more freely in it?

The Plan of Life Lived in Gebirah Missions

Gebirah Missioners praying the rosary in front of Our Lady's statue at the Notredame Cathedral in HCMC

This is not theory for us in Gebirah.

Over the years, I have noticed something quietly beautiful through our humanitarian missions.

When volunteers step away from their routines, travel to unfamiliar places, and serve people on the margins, something inside them reorders itself.

In the simplicity of daily prayer, Mass, service, and fraternity, many discover a rhythm of life that feels right. Peaceful. Anchored.

What they are experiencing—often without realising it—is the grace of living a Plan of Life, something Opus Dei has proposed for decades as a practical path to holiness in ordinary life.

And the beginning of a new year is perhaps the most natural moment to embrace it.

One of the customs in Gebirah is that in the eight days leading up to each mission, we prepare ourselves intentionally through daily Mass, daily prayer for the mission, fellow missioners, and our Friends in Need, the Rosary and Angelus, Confession, and prayers for the intentions of the Holy Father and the Cardinal.

This preparation is essential. A mission bears fruit only when hearts are prepared.

During the mission itself, prayer continues to anchor our days. Missioners are often assigned prayers to lead the group, ensuring that amid logistics, aid distribution, training, and fatigue, the presence of God is never lost. An e-prayer card helps us stay focused, but grace does the deeper work.

Our hope is simple: that by the end of the mission, missioners receive the grace not only to appreciate this way of life—but to desire to live it for the rest of their lives.

Key Areas of the Plan of Life

1. Daily Holy Mass and Holy Communion

Private mass for Gebirah missioners in a chapel at Our Lady of Nui Cui

Every authentic Plan of Life begins at the altar.

Our eternal salvation depends on allowing Jesus to save us. In His Bread of Life discourse (Jn 6:22–71), Christ makes it unmistakably clear that eternal life flows from eating His Body and drinking His Blood.

The graces that flow into our hearts are in direct proportion to our preparation and disposition. One Holy Communion, well received, could transform us into saints.

“I have always taught you, my beloved daughters and sons, that the root and the center of your spiritual life is the Holy Sacrifice of the Altar.” — St Josemaría Escrivá

2. Confession & Reconciliation

By birth, we are all sinners. Until our dying day, we must fight—trusting more in God’s grace—to overcome sin in our lives. Sin is the soul’s greatest enemy.

One of the most efficacious means to conquer sin is the Sacrament of Confession, where God’s mercy heals, restores, and strengthens us. This is why, eight days before a mission, Gebirah missioners are strongly encouraged to go for confession, preparing carefully and learning to trust deeply in God’s mercy.

3. Personal Prayer and Mental Prayer

A short visit to Our Lord at a church along the way to our hotel in Fang, Thailand.

A Plan of Life cannot survive on sacramental moments alone. It needs daily, personal conversation with God.

Mental prayer—whether through Scripture, silence, or simple heart-to-heart dialogue—teaches us to listen. It is here that stress loosens its grip, anxieties are placed before God, and our hearts gradually learn to rest.

4. Visiting Jesus in the Tabernacle

Jesus has remained in the Eucharist to remedy our weaknesses, doubts, fears, and discouragements.

Time spent before the Tabernacle restores meaning to our struggles, comforts us in difficulty, and fills us with apostolic zeal.

“I can do all things in Him who strengthens me.” (Phil 4:13)

5. The Angelus and Marian Devotion

The Angelus invites us to meditate daily on the mystery of the Incarnation and to learn from Mary’s readiness to say fiat.

A successful Plan of Life would be incomplete without Our Lady. As St Louis de Montfort teaches, devotion to Mary is the quickest, easiest, and most efficacious path to holiness.

This is why Gebirah missions often conclude with a pilgrimage to a Marian shrine.

6. Spiritual Reading

Spiritual reading is decisive for attaining the central goal of Christian life: a personal encounter with Christ and identification with Him.

This meditative reading gradually shapes our thoughts, decisions, and actions.

“Don’t neglect your spiritual reading. Reading has made many saints.” (St Josemaria Escriva, The Way, no. 116)

7. Apostolic Life

To follow Christ is to be a missionary.

Many of the people we serve are non-Christians. The only Gospel they may ever read is not from a book, but from observing how we love them as Christ loved us.

As Our Lord said: “By this all will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.” (Jn 13:35)

8. Work

Missioners sorting aid products for distribution the next day in Fang, Thailand.

Work is not an obstacle to holiness; it is one of its primary means.

Be punctual in starting, diligent in working, and honest in finishing. Remember always that you are working for the Lord.

“So, whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do everything for the glory of God.” (1 Corinthians 10:31)

9. Penance and Self-Denial

Cross country drive to reach marginalised community living in the highlands among the forest in Thailand

To soar spiritually, the soul needs two wings: prayer and penance.

During missions, penance often appears in very ordinary ways—accepting inconvenience, embracing fatigue, choosing patience, and sometimes simply not complaining.

10. Examination of Conscience

Ending the day with an examination of conscience allows God’s light to gently reveal what draws us closer to Him and what pulls us away.

It keeps the soul humble, awake, and responsive to grace.