laudable Practice

Over the Christmas season, I was interested in references, on The Lutheran Neoplatonist , the substack of a priest in the Church of Norway, to seasonal Norwegian customs. The first was in a homily for what the Book of Common Prayer terms The Sunday after Christmas Day, or what contemporary Anglican liturgies tend to describe as The First Sunday of Christmas. The Lutheran Neoplatonist , however, pointed to the Norwegian term : what we call “Romjulssøndag” ... in the Church of Norway. Romjul (lit. “space Christmas”) refers to the days of Christmas between Christmas Day and New Year’s Day.  Something of this is probably reflected in the experience of many Anglican churches in these Islands and North America on The Sunday after Christmas Day. A smaller congregation after the large congregations for carol services and Christmas Day; perhaps simple congregational carols and less choral music; and the main liturgy of the day rather more modest than Midnight Mass. We might, then, regard Th...

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 ...

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...

'Christ has always been in Christmas.' So says a new campaign by the Church of England .  Reassuring, isn't it? The established Church has decided to confidently challenge the prevailing secularist presentation of Christmas as a midwinter commercial festival, 'liberated' from its unfortunate Christian roots, repackaged in a manner that conforms to the norms of ideological multiculturalism and EDI concerns. Except, of course, that this is not at all the intention behind the Church of England campaign. 'Christ has always been in Christmas' is not directed at secularism. It is, rather, directed at the disreputable anti-immigration activist Tommy Robinson and - that new spectre haunting the Church of England hierarchy - ' Christian Nationalism ' (a desperately confused concept with little real meaning in the United Kingdom and Europe).  Odd, isn't it, that the Church of England has found its voice now. After decades of cold, haughty aloofness to cult...

now in the time of this mortal life, in which thy Son Jesus Christ came to visit us in great humility ... Despite what the Advent purists tell us, that Advent stands entirely apart from Christmas, that any anticipation of the celebrations of the Lord's Nativity pollutes Advent, Cranmer's collect for the season - prayed from Evensong on the eve of Advent Sunday until Christmas Eve - sets before us, throughout Advent, morning and evening, the approach of the Nativity. Cranmer could, of course, have composed the Advent collect without any reference to the Nativity. This is the case, after all, with the collects for Advent II and IV. While, however, this may be true of those two collects, it is not the case with the pre-1662 collect for Advent III : Lord, we beseche thee, geve eare to our prayers, and by thy gracious visitacion lighten the darkenes of our hearte, by our Lorde Jesus Christe. It is difficult, I think, to contend that this collect is not an anticipation of Christmas. ...

Dec. 25 ... I read Prayers and administered the Holy Sacrament this morning at Weston, being Christmas Day. My Squire and Lady both at Church and at the Sacrament. This being Christmas Day, the following old poor men dined at my House, and I gave each of them a shilling to carry home to their wives - Richard Bates, Richard Buck, Thos. Dicker, Thos. Cary, Thos. Cushion, Thos. Carr, and my Clerk Js Smith - in all gave them 0.7.0. I had a prodigious fine surloin of Beef rosted with quantities of plumb-Puddings. We also began on Mince Pies today at dinner - entry for Christmas Day 1780 in the diary of Parson Woodforde . Good Parson Woodforde would be rather bemused by an article in First Things , published over the Christmas season: ' How the Oxford Movement Saved Christmas '. Leave aside for the moment the good Parson being very confused by the views of the Oxford Movement. He would be wondering - as he enjoyed his plumb puddings and mince pies - why on earth this Movement had to...

On this Christmas Eve, we turn to Bishop Bull's sermon ' The blessed Virgin's low and exalted Condition ' on the text Luke 1:48-49 - "For He hath regarded the low estate of His handmaiden; for, behold, from henceforth all generations shall call me blessed. For He that is mighty hath done for me great things; and holy is His name". Bull declares "that both it [i.e. the text] and the whole Magnificat, or song of the blessed Virgin, is applicable to, and may be made use of by, all true Christians".  There is something of an echo here of Bede's statement that the use of the Magnificat at Evening Prayer is a "meditating upon the incarnation". Even more significantly, Bull is also following Augustine : it means more for Mary to have been a disciple of Christ than to have been the mother of Christ. It means more for her, an altogether greater blessing, to have been Christ's disciple than to have been Christ's mother. There is, then, s...

In these days before Christmas Day, laudable Practice will follow on from the short Advent series on sermons on the Last Things by Tillotson, Bull, and Clarke by sharing extracts from sermons on the Incarnation by these three divines of the 18th century Church of England. Today's extract is from Tillotson's 1680 sermon ' Concerning the Incarnation of Christ ', preached on 21st December in the Church of St. Lawrence Jewry, London, on the text John 1:14. Note how this sermon was delivered before Christmas. Tillotson described the time as the "Occasion of the Annual Commemoration of the Incarnation and Nativity of our B. Lord and Saviour". Tillotson's text, of course, has significance as the Prayer Book's appointed Gospel for Christmas Day. He was, in other words, preparing the congregation for the proclamation of this Gospel at Christmas Communion.  Pointing to the Evangelist's account of the Incarnation as a setting forth of God's "most g...

On this feast of Our Lord's Nativity, an extract from Lancelot Andrewes' sermon for Christmas Day 1623 , on the text 'That in the dispensations of the fulness of times, He might gather together in one all things in Christ, both which are in Heaven and which are on earth even in Him' (Ephesians 1:10). Here Andrewes, in a richly patristic fashion, sets forth the recapitulation of all things in the Incarnate Word, the recapitulation in which we participate through the Eucharist, in anticipation of the "merry joyful feast" that will be the renewal of all things. As we confess the Incarnation of the Word, receive the Holy Mysteries, and celebrate this day and season with joy, Andrewes provides a beautiful, powerful meditation on our salvation: All in heaven recapitulate into One, that is God; all in earth recapitulate into one, that is man. Gather these two now, and all are gathered, all the things in either. And now at this last great recollection of God and man, ...

At the Parish Eucharist on the Fourth Sunday of Advent, 24.12.23 Luke 1:26-38 “The angel said to [Mary], ‘The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you’.” Every Christmas, we hear it at our carol services: “In the sixth month the angel Gabriel was sent by God to a town in Galilee called Nazareth, to a virgin engaged to a man whose name was Joseph, of the house of David. The virgin’s name was Mary”. Every Christmas, we sing about it in our carols: ‘Round yon Virgin, Mother and Child’, ‘Late in time behold Him come, Offspring of a Virgin's womb’. Every Sunday, when we gather for the Eucharist, we declare it to be part of the Church’s faith in the Nicene Creed: ‘was incarnate by the Holy Spirit of the Virgin Mary’. At Baptism, at Confirmation, and daily at Morning and Evening Prayer in the Church of Ireland, we profess our faith in it, in the summary of the Christian faith that is the Apostles’ Creed: ‘conceived by the Holy Spirit, born of the ...

As Christmas approaches, it is usual to find some online Anglican voices protesting at the use of 'Midnight Mass' to describe the First Eucharist of Christmas.  Usually these are robustly Protestant voices, angered by the use of a term which - it is contended - was entirely rejected at the Reformation.  At other times - perhaps rather more surprisingly - it can be a minority of Anglo-catholics, criticising its use in Anglican parishes which do not otherwise describe the Eucharist as 'Mass'.  Let us begin with those Protestant voices.  That 'Mass' ceased to be used in the Church of England as a title for the Eucharist in 1552 is a fact. There was good reason for this in light of the significant differences between the Prayer Book Eucharist and the Tridentine Mass: communion in both kinds, denial of of the eucharistic sacrifice as a propitiatory sacrifice, use of the vernacular, rejection of the doctrine of transubstantiation for more deeply Augustinian accounts o...