Monday 24 December

Reveal among us the light of your presence, that we may behold your power and glory.

Readings (Click the links to see the readings)

2 Samuel 7.1-5, 8-11, 16 | Ps 89.19-29 | Luke 1.67-69

A Christmas Carol
Christina Georgina Rossetti

In the bleak mid-winter
Frosty wind made moan,
Earth stood hard as iron,
Water like a stone;
Snow had fallen, snow on snow,
Snow on snow,
In the bleak mid-winter
Long ago.

Our God, Heaven cannot hold Him
Nor earth sustain;
Heaven and earth shall flee away
When He comes to reign:
In the bleak mid-winter
A stable-place sufficed
The Lord God Almighty
Jesus Christ.

Enough for Him, whom cherubim
Worship night and day,
A breastful of milk
And a mangerful of hay;
Enough for Him, whom angels
Fall down before,
The ox and ass and camel
Which adore.

Angels and archangels
May have gathered there,
Cherubim and seraphim
Thronged the air,
But only His mother
In her maiden bliss
Worshipped the Beloved
With a kiss.

What can I give Him,
Poor as I am?
If I were a shepherd
I would bring a lamb,
If I were a Wise Man
I would do my part, —
Yet what I can I give Him,
Give my heart.
The Poetical Works of Christina Georgina Rossetti (1904), p. 246.

Be-Attitude: Blessed are those who are persecuted because of righteousness, who are the true children of God.

Prayer

Almighty God,
you make us glad with the yearly remembrance
of the birth of your Son Jesus Christ:
grant that, as we joyfully receive him as our redeemer,
so we may with sure confidence behold him
when he shall come to be our judge;
who is alive and reigns with you,
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever.

Justice, mercy and peace AFP

act for peace, "the Christmas Bowl people."

Nativity

The shepherds adore the Christ child — from the 'Nativity' facade of the Basilica de la Sagrada Família, Barcelona.

In the deep mid-winter, Rosetti's words in the acclaimed 1909 setting by Harold Darke, sung by the choir of King's College, Cambridge.

May the Lord, when he comes, find us watching and waiting. Amen.


St Philip's Anglican Church, corner Moorhouse and Macpherson Streets, O'Connor, ACT 2602
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