#500 That’s a lot of newsletters
When the Rector sat down to help me assemble this week’s newsletter, we realised it is the five hundredth edition of the newsletter. (That makes next week either the Levi edition or the Brian Lara edition, depending on your cultural references.) 500 newsletters is a lot for a little mouse to type, taking us from the depths of Covid, through bad news and good news, Easters and Harvests, weddings and funerals, and now once again getting ready for the great feast of Christmas.
I am lucky to be the church mouse in such a lovely church.
Fr Sam writes
It is very much Carol Service Season now. I attended the three St Paul’s School services this week, with the Holt School this evening, and Emmbrook School and St Cecilia’s next week. This is well off my personal record of seventeen carol services in one Advent!
In a carol service we consider the Incarnation of the Son of God, God choosing to become mortal for our sake and for the salvation of the world. One contast always intrigues me: two carols that have different answers to a question.
In Away in a Manger, we hear
The little Lord Jesus,
no crying he makes.
But if we go to Once in royal David’s city, we sing something different:
Tears and smiles like us he knew.
One suggests the peaceful, beatific, ideal baby that our Christmas cards and nativity plays suggest, the serenity and peace of God’s salvation. The other reminds us that our Saviour did not enter into a fairytale, but into the harshness of our world, where the straw in the manger pricked his skin, and where one day he would die on the Cross.
Both of these images are true.
This Sunday: rejoice!
The Third Sunday of Advent is traditionally known as Gaudete Sunday, because the opening words of the service were from Philippians 4: “Rejoice in the Lord always”. It was characterised by a lightening of the mood, as purple vestments gave way to rose (i.e. pink) and the Advent fast was lessened. Make sure that this Sunday you have joy in your souls!
Our first reading from the prophecy of Isaiah tells of how the dry land shall rejoice, “and sorrow and sighing shall flee away”. In our Gospel, Jesus tells us of the signs in the world that tell of God’s salvation arriving in our midst.
Image: ‘Annunciation’ by Juan de Flandes
Services this Sunday
| 9.30am | St Paul’s | Parish Mass | Fr Sam Tanna-Korn |
| Anthem: Alma redemptoris Mater – Palestrina Voluntary: Prelude on ‘Winchester New’ – Lloyd Webber | |||
| 10am | Woosehill Church | Holy Communion | Revd Wes Hampton |
| 11am | St Nicholas’s | Community Eucharist | Fr Sam Tanna-Korn |
Nine Lessons and Carols
Do mark in your diary our carol service at 6.15pm on Sunday 21 December, and invite friends and family to come to this beautiful and traditional celebration of the birth and Incarnation of Jesus Christ.
Carol singing on Wednesday 17 December
The choir will be singing carols at Alexandra Grange and West Oak care home on Wednesday 17 December at 6.30-7pm, (one group to each venue) and at Wokingham Hospital at 2pm on 18 December.
If any member of the congregation would like to join us please can you let Louise or Lesley know so we can balance the groups and provide music.
Image: Village Choristers Rehearsing an Anthem for Sunday, Edward Bird
Mothers’ Union 40th anniversary
Next year is a significant one: it is the fortieth anniversary of our branch of the Mothers’ Union. The MU is a worldwide Christian movement that exists to support families and to promote stable, loving relationships through prayer, community outreach, and practical assistance.
We will be commemmorating this anniversary at St Paul’s at the 9.30 parish mass this week. Maybe you would be interested in finding out more about the MU and its programme of events next year?
This week’s calendar: the O Antiphons
The period from 17 December onwards is the time when Advent focuses especially on the countdown to Christmas. The days are known particularly for the ‘O Antiphons’, a series of texts that are used each day at evening prayer with the Magnificat. They focus on titles and attributes of Jesus: Wisdom, Lord, Root of Jesse, Key of David, Morning Star, King of the Nations, and Emmanuel.
You may like to think about the antiphon of the day, to pray evening prayer, or to sing the carol “O come, o come, Emmanuel”, which is derived from these traditional antiphons.
