laudable Practice

At the early Eucharist of Christmas Day, 2025 Luke 2:7 [1] “Beloved in Christ, be it this Christmastide our care and delight to hear again the message of the angels, and in heart and mind to go even unto Bethlehem and see this thing which is come to pass …” [2]. They are words heard each year at the beginning of the service of Nine Lessons and Carols, in the days before Christmas Day. It is a call echoed in our carols. In the words of ‘O come, all ye faithful':  “See how the shepherds, Summoned to His cradle, Leaving their flocks, draw nigh with lowly fear; We too will thither bend our joyful footsteps” [3]. And in the quietness and stillness of this Christmas morning, this is what we do.  As Saint Luke’s account of the Lord’s nativity is read; as we confess in the Creed, “For us and for our salvation he came down from heaven, was incarnate by the Holy Spirit of the Virgin Mary and was made man”; as we come to the holy Sacrament, there to partake of Him … We ‘in heart and mind...

On Christmas Day 1710, Francis Atterbury's preached his ' Sermon on the Incarnation of our Lord '. The sermon set forth why the "Doctrine of the Day" brought forth festive joy, as we share in the in praises of the angelic host: All Thanks and Praise therefore be given given to him, that our Tongues can possibly express, or our Hearts conceive! Abraham, at a mighty Distance, and upon a very Dim and Imperfect View of it, rejoiced to see this Day:  The Angels, who themselves had no Interest in this Deliverance, yet were highly pleased with the Prospect of those Blessings it derived on their Fellow-creature, Man; and therefore sang that Hymn on this Occasion, which the Evangelist has Glory be to God on High, on Earth Peace, Good-will towards Men. And shall not We, for whose Sake this Peace was sent on Earth, and to whom all this Good-will was meant, shall not We also give Glory to God on high, and rejoice before him with Reverence? Surely this is News, at which (as Is...

Our  Advent series of Marian reflections from Jeremy Taylor's The Great Exemplar concludes with the Nativity. Taylor draws us to behold the intimacy of Nativity, implied in Saint Luke's words, "And she brought forth her firstborn son, and wrapped him in swaddling clothes, and laid him in a manger; because there was no room for them in the inn": She had no ministers to attend but angels, and neither her poverty nor her piety would permit her to provide other nurses; but herself did the offices of a tender and pious parent. She kissed him, and worshipped him, and thanked him that he would be born of her, and she suckled him, and bound him in her arms and swaddling bands; and when she had represented to God her first scene of joy and eucharist, she softly laid him in the manger, till her desires and his own necessities called her to take him, and to rock him softly in her arms. And from this deportment she read a lecture of piety and maternal care, which mothers should ...

My three favourite books of 2025 were not only all written by Anglicans. They also have each something significant to say to contemporary Anglicanism.  Fergus Butler-Gallie's Twelve Churches: An Unlikely History of the Buildings That Made Christianity is an excellent reflection on place within Christianity. Church buildings, particular locations, national identity: the theological significance of each is considered. The book, then, provides a most welcome and necessary alternative to those voices who would suggest that none of these actually matter for Christian faith. But the thing is that as soon as a person encounters God in a place, it becomes a somewhere. Christians call these 'somewheres' churches.  God in Christ, we might say, makes Anywhere to be Somewhere. To be more precise, God in Christ makes every Anywhere to be Somewhere. This, the book suggests, is the significance of the Incarnation occurring in the provincial backwater of Bethlehem: Bethlehem, therefore, i...

For many us, this coming Sunday will be be marked the service of Nine Lessons and Carols. The late Sir Roger Scruton described it, in  Our Church  (2013), as "that quintessentially Anglican ceremony". With this in mind, and to aid the "quintessentially Anglican" character of this glorious expression of popular Anglicanism, I am offering a laudable Practice check list for the service, heartily formed by my own prejudices.  1. Keep the traditional readings. There are, of course, alternative reading schemes. Common Worship offers 'Good news for the poor' and 'The Gospel of Luke'. Both are rather trite and entirely fail to rival the traditional scheme's proclamation "of the loving purposes of God from the first days of our disobedience unto the glorious redemption brought us by this Holy Child". With four of the readings from the Old Testament, the traditional scheme ensures that the Lord's Nativity is rightly understood within the c...

That it may please thee to illuminate all Bishops, Priests, and Deacons, with true knowledge and understanding of thy Word; and that both by their preaching and living they may set it forth and shew it accordingly, We beseech thee to hear us, good Lord. This petition in the Litany has, I think, a particular resonance in Advent Ember Week. Many bishops, priests, and deacons will be preparing Christmas sermons during this week. As they prepare to preach on the great festival of the Incarnation, it is right that this petition in the Litany is offered with particular intention, that the truth of the Incarnation will be proclaimed from pulpits at Christmas. Who for us men and for our salvation came down from heaven, And was incarnate by the Holy Ghost of the Virgin Mary, And was made man ... The petition in the Litany is not only a prayer that error will not be taught from pulpits by bishops, priests, and deacons in Christmas sermons; it is also a prayer that the saving truth will be procla...