Contents:
- Propers (Collect and Lessons) for the First Sunday after Christmas Day, with Hymns.
- Link to the Parish website, whereon is found the YouTube live-stream of our 10:30 a.m. (EDT) service.
- Parish Announcements for the week of January 5, 2025.
- Rector’s Mini-Ramblings: The Twelve Days of Christmas
Propers for the Second Sunday after Christmas Day.
The Book of Common Prayer 1928.
The Collect.
ALMIGHTY God, who hast poured upon us the new light of thine incarnate Word; Grant that the same light enkindled in our hearts may shine forth in our lives; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
For the Epistle: Isaiah lxi. 1.
THE Spirit of the Lord God is upon me; because the LORD hath anointed me to preach good tidings unto the meek; he hath sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and the opening of the prison to them that are bound; to proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord, and the day of vengeance of our God; to comfort all that mourn; to appoint unto them that mourn in Zion, to give unto them beauty for ashes, the oil of joy for mourning, the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness; that they might be called trees of righteousness, the planting of the Lord, that he might be glorified.
The Gospel: St. Matthew ii. 19.
WHEN Herod was dead, behold, an angel of the Lord appeareth in a dream to Joseph in Egypt, saying, Arise, and take the young child and his mother, and go into the land of Israel: for they are dead which sought the young child’s life. And he arose, and took the young child and his mother, and came into the land of Israel. But when he heard that Archelaus did reign in Judæa in the room of his father Herod, he was afraid to go thither: notwithstanding, being warned of God in a dream, he turned aside into the parts of Galilee: and he came and dwelt in a city called Nazareth: that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the prophets, He shall be called a Nazarene.
Hymns:
Note: Clicking the link will take you to a YouTube rendition of the hymn in question – especially helpful if it is one that is less familiar to you!
Processional Hymn: “Brightest and best of the sons of the morning” – #46 (First Tune: Morning Star)
Sermon Hymn: “The snow lay on the ground” #41 (Venite adoremus dominum)
Communion Hymn: “I know a rose tree springing” #17 (Rosa mystica)
Recessional Hymn: “We three Kings of Orient are” #51 (Gaspard)
The service of Holy Communion, 10:30 a.m. on Sundays, is broadcast weekly via YouTube and on our website:
Watch this Sunday’s live-stream!
Our new website is live and may be found at cca-nc.org. This website should simplify and streamline our information-sharing quite a bit, including the fact that our most current YouTube live-stream will always be found at “Watch this Sunday’s live-stream,” accessible from the menu-bar at the top of the page.
The website is also a place to check our “Current operating status” – in other words, whether or not the church is open for services, in case of inclement weather (or unusual episodes like the sabotage of transformers a few years ago). If in doubt, check us out! Other options include Meet Our Clergy, Who We Are, Services and Office Hours, and How to find us.
All of these links can also be found by scrolling down the main page, as can also sections on “Find Your Place” – ministries of the parish, which you may wish to join – “Recent Media,” both video and audio, and “Recent Posts” on our nascent blog page. The goal is for this to become a “one-stop shop” for information about Christ Church Anglican.
If you have any questions or issues, please contact our media team at [email protected]. And if you wish to volunteer for our media team, please contact our IT/AV/Social media specialist, John Fesq, at [email protected].
Announcements for the Week of Sunday, January 5, 2025
If you are visiting us: Welcome to Christ Church Anglican, Southern Pines! Thank you for being with us. We are very pleased to have you join us for the service, and hope that your worship here is a blessing to you. Please sign the guest book on the table in the narthex, and provide appropriate contact information. Include your email address in order to be placed on our parish email list: you won’t be bombarded with mail, but it’s a good way to keep in touch. And may God bless you!
New Members Classes: We have several people who have been regular recent attendees and have expressed an interest in formally joining our parish and jurisdiction (the Diocese of the Holy Cross, Anglican Catholic Church). New member classes will begin on Sunday, January 12, 2025 (First Sunday after the Epiphany, and will continued through and including Sunday, February 9th (Fifth Sunday after the Epiphany), unless otherwise announced. Classes will run from 9 o’clock to 10 o’clock in the morning, prior to our 10:30 service. If you are interested in attending, and in joining our church, please let Father Tom know as soon as possible! Which leads to…
The Bishop’s Visitation: The Right Reverend Paul C. Hewett, Bishop Ordinary of the Diocese of the Holy Cross, will be conducting his annual visitation of our parish on Sunday, March 9th, which happens to be the First Sunday in Lent. He will, at that time, confirm (for those who have not previously been confirmed by a Bishop in apostolic succession) or receive (for those who have, but are coming into our ecclesiastical jurisdiction for the first time) those who are desirous and have been prepared to become part of the ACC, our Diocese, and our parish. Again, if that describes you, please let me know as soon as possible, so that we can sign you up for the new member classes. Many thanks! – Fr. Tom
Christ Church Anglican’s Choir is always looking for new members! Please contact Amanda at our church contact page for further information. You are also welcome to join the choir for practice even if you are a bit shy and would prefer not to sing in the choir itself, but would like to learn or practice our hymns and service music, and sing from your usual spot in the congregation!
It is said that “who sings, prays twice” – and encouraging congregational singing is an important part of church music. To that end, you will have noticed that we are including YouTube links to our hymns, now, for those who would like to prepare before arriving at the service on Sunday!
Hold the date – Annual Parish Meeting coming up! As long-time members will know, our annual Parish Meeting will be held on the third Sunday of January, which this year falls on the 19th, following our regular Sunday service. If you are an active communicant member of this parish, please plan to attend, if at all possible!
Holy Days for the week of January 5th, 2024
Sunday, January 5th – Second Sunday after Christmas Day; Vigil (Eve) of the Epiphany; Twelfth Night (last day of Christmastide)
Monday, January 6th – Feast of the Epiphany
Rector’s Ramblings:
The Twelve Days of Christmas.
For many people, “The Twelve Days of Christmas” is nothing but a Christmas carol – and not always a favorite, as a fair number of folks find the repetition, and the improbable gifts, to grow increasingly irritating as the song goes on!
But this edition of “Rector’s Ramblings” is not about the song, but the actual Twelve Days of Christmastide. In the secular world, the “Christmas season” begins as soon as Thanksgiving is over: in fact, since its origin in the 1920s, and particularly since the advent of television provided a wider viewership, the appearance of Santa Claus in the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day parade was the “official” beginning of the secular Christmas season.
More recently, as Thanksgiving has proven stubbornly resistant to extreme commercialization, Christmas decorations and gifts have been available for sale since shortly after (and sometimes even before!) Halloween, and this year I noticed that some radio stations have begun playing Christmas carols starting in early November! But in our Christian faith, of course, Christmas proper begins with First Evensong (effectively, sunset) of Christmas Eve, December 24th: prior to that, of course, we celebrate Advent.
But whereas the secular world is often very quick to discard Christmas following Christmas Day on the 25th of December – perhaps because it has been practically done to death the preceding month or two! It is not unusual to see Christmas trees, stripped of their decorations, lying sadly along the side of the road, waiting to be picked up by garbage collectors (or, perhaps, forward-thinking recreation-and-park departments that use them for mulch), just a day or two after Christmas. Even in my own (Methodist) household, growing up, we did not usually keep the tree up past New Year’s Day. Christmas was the 25th, only, and after that, it was time to return to business as usual.
One of the things I found quite refreshing, when I discovered the Anglican tradition, was that we retain the older tradition of not only keeping Advent, but of celebrating all Twelve Days of Christmastide! Many of our higher feasts have what is known as an “Octave”: that means that these observances are commemorated not only on the day itself, but the week following, for a total of eight days. Epiphany is one of those; All Saints is another, and there are several others. Easter, of course, has its “Great Forty Days”! Christmas is not quite that exuberant, but it does have an extended “octave-plus” of Twelve Days: beginning, as I say, on First Evensong of the Feast of the Nativity, at sunset on Christmas Eve, it continues until the Vigil, or Eve, of the Epiphany – the evening of the 5th of January, which is therefore known as Twelfth Night.
In “Merrie Olde England,” Twelfth Night was often celebrated (at least among wealthier households) with considerable merriment, perhaps including a “Boar’s Head Feast,” a vestige of which survives in the eponymous “Boar’s Head Carol”:
The boar’s head, as I understand,
Is the rarest dish in all the land,
Which thus bedeck’d with a gay garland
Let us servire cantico (“serve with a song”)!
Caput apri defero (“The boar’s head I bear”),
Reddens laudes Domino (“Rendering praises to the Lord”)!
With Twelfth Night, Christmastide proper comes to an end: the 6th of January is the Feast of the Epiphany, celebrated in the Western Church particularly for the Visitation of the Magi (also known as the Wise Men, or the Three Sacred Kings – Los Tres Santos Reyes, in Spanish), who came bearing their gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh, whose qualities point to the significance of the Holy Child Jesus as King of Heaven (gold), Great High Priest (frankincense), and Sacrifice for our sins (myrrh). But though Christmastide may conclude with Twelfth Night, it is not until the Presentation of Christ in the Temple, on the 2nd of February, that the full Nativity Cycle can be said to be over.
So it is that our Christian ecclesiastical calendar is rather out-of-step with the secular one… and that is a good thing. As Christians, we are called to be “in the world, but not of the world.” And there are few times which demonstrate that dichotomy more clearly than Christmastide! So resist, brothers and sisters, the urge to un-decorate, the secular pressure to stop singing Christmas carols – at least for a few more days! (And maybe until Candlemas, another name for the Feast of the Presentation.) Christ is born for us: God Incarnate, King Divine, Sacrifice for our Redemption. A gift of that magnitude deserves a celebration far longer than a single day!
Alleluia! Unto us a child is born: O come, let us adore him! Alleluia!
Faithfully yours in Christ,
Fr. Tom Harbold
