Dear Friends,
Advent begins today, the beginning of a new year for the Church. Over four weeks, its austerely beautiful liturgy leads us to the celebration of Christmas.
This morning we baptise James Tiberius Anderson, and welcome his family and friends as they gather with us.
Among the special services of the season are the Advent Carol Service at 7:00 pm tonight, the School Carol Service at 5:00 pm next Sunday, and the Service of Nine Lessons and Carols at 7:00 pm on 20 December. This year we shall again have the Carols at the Crib Service for little children on Monday 21 December at 6:00 pm.
Advent is a season of preparation for Christmas certainly, but it is also clearly a time when we prepare for summer (will it ever come?), the end of the civil year, and for the closing-down of New Zealand for summer holidays.
The perverse fact that the end of the civil year is also the beginning of the Church’s year is a clue that Advent is about something more than just preparation. At a time when we can easily become very jaded, we are recalled to live every moment of our lives full of hope in the promise that God is. This is a season to underscore an attitude towards life, an attitude of patient waiting to see the renewing activity of God in all the events of the day.
I hope that you will make a special effort to immerse yourselves in the weekly and daily readings for the season, and to pray quietly with them. The Scriptures feed our imagination with nurturing images of promise and hope, and by waiting with them we can have that hope become a part of us. Then we shall see and experience things in a new and different way.
Fr Reg Williams will celebrate his 95th birthday on 10 December. There will be a special morning tea for him after Mass next Sunday.
Tomorrow, S. Andrew’s Day, Fr Philip Baker celebrates 60 years as a priest. We honour him for his faithful service to S. Michael’s and to the wider church in New Zealand and abroad. For thirteen years he served in the mission field in Melanesia, including six years as Warden of S. Peter’s College, Siota.
May God bless you
Fr Peter Williams
Advent Readings: Week One
Monday Isaiah 2: 1–5 Matthew 8: 5–11
(S. Andrew’s Day) Romans 10: 9–18 Matthew 4: 18–22
Tuesday Isaiah 11: 1–10 Luke 10: 21–24
Wednesday Isaiah 25: 6–10a Matthew 15: 29–37
Thursday Isaiah 26: 1–6 Matthew 7: 21, 24–27
Friday Isaiah 29: 17–24 Matthew 9: 27–31
Saturday Isaiah 30: 19–26 Matthew 9: 35–10: 1, 6–8
