Tuesday, January 5th, Eve of the Epiphany
6:00pm ‘Prayers & Praises’ – Haliburton Place
6:30-7:30pm Brownies/Sparks Mtg. – Parish Hall
7:30pm Holy Communion
Thursday, 7 January
1:30-3:00 Seniors’ Drop-In
7:30pm West Hants Historical Society Meeting: Presentation on Maud Lewis by Alan Deacon
Sunday, January 10th, First Sunday after the Epiphany
8:00am Holy Communion – Parish Hall
10:30am Holy Communion – Parish Hall
4:30pm Evening Prayer at KES
The Book of Common Prayer (Canadian, 1962) does not provide a collect for the Second Sunday after Christmas, but specifies that the service for the Octave Day of Christmas “shall be used until the Epiphany.”
ALMIGHTY God, who hast given us thy only begotten Son to take our nature upon him, and as at this time to be born of a pure Virgin: Grant that we being regenerate, and made thy children by adoption and grace, may daily be renewed by thy Holy Spirit; through the same our Lord Jesus Christ, who liveth and reigneth with thee and the same Spirit, ever one God, world without end. Amen.
The Lesson: Isaiah 9:2-7
The Gospel: St Luke 2:15-21
Artwork: Nicolaes Maes, Adoration of the Shepherds, c. 1660. Oil on canvas, J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles.
What’s in a name? Everything. Something of the wonder and the mystery of words and names is startlingly before us on this Octave Day of Christmas. It is concentrated for us in Bethlehem. Strong words and names are proclaimed in the Scripture readings. Bethlehem is the place of words and names that speak beyond the confines of a stable and a manger. Bethlehem is the place where the Word made flesh is named and signified as Jesus. Such is the wonder and the mystery of this day.
The idea of the Word made flesh, it seems to me, challenges the all-too-easy nominalism and relativism of our culture, as if names were merely of our choosing and at our convenience and as if names and words convey no real meaning beyond what meaning we choose to give to them; in short, that words and names signify no reality. We are really only talking to ourselves.
Bethlehem shows us something more. It makes visible the astounding wonder of the unity of creation with the Creator and the unity of the whole of our humanity. Bethlehem speaks to the deep desires of human hearts and to the form of those desires in their contemporary complexity. What are our environmental concerns about except a yearning and a longing for some sort of connection with the world from which we have alienated ourselves by our technocratic exuberance and arrogance? What are our social and political concerns about except a yearning and a longing for peace and harmony, for true unity and respect for all the peoples of the world?
The collects for today, The Octave Day of Christmas and Feast of The Circumcision of Christ, being New Year’s Day, from The Book of Common Prayer (Canadian, 1962):
ALMIGHTY God, who hast given us thy only begotten Son to take our nature upon him, and as at this time to be born of a pure Virgin: Grant that we being regenerate, and made thy children by adoption and grace, may daily be renewed by thy Holy Spirit; through the same our Lord Jesus Christ, who liveth and reigneth with thee and the same Spirit, ever one God, world without end. Amen.
Of the Circumcision:
ALMIGHTY God, who madest thy blessed Son to be circumcised, and obedient to the law for man: Grant us the true circumcision of the Spirit; that, our hearts, and all our members, being mortified from all worldly and carnal lusts, we may in all things obey thy blessed will; through the same thy Son Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
For the New Year:
O IMMORTAL Lord God, who inhabitest eternity, and hast brought thy servants to the beginning of another year: Pardon, we humbly beseech thee, our transgressions in the past, bless to us this New Year, and graciously abide with us all the days of our life; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
The Lesson: Isaiah 9:2-7
The Gospel: St Luke 2:15-21
Artwork: Piers Paul Rubens, The Circumcision, 1605. Oil on canvas, Liechtenstein Museum, Vienna.
