SATURDAY 17th DECEMBER

People of God: return!
You are called to be God's own.
From the mountains announce the good news.
God comes in justice and peace,
to all who follow his ways.
You are God's children.
Lord make us one in the peace of Christ
today and for ever.
Amen.

    Outside the International Court of Justice: The Peace Palace. Den Haag, The Netherlands


STOP PRESS!

If you're reading this before 10.00 in the morning, you've still got time! Get yourself down to the Church Hall for OPEN HOUSE. Coffee (tick!) Mince Pies (tick!) Things to do (tick!) All ages (tick!). The shopping can wait.


And tomorrow...

All the usual morning services and Breakfast Club PLUS 'Take Note' to entertain you over coffee after the 10.00 service. So...take note!

And then at 18.00, the Lessons and Carols service. The choir will be singing a number of pieces including John Joubert's lovely 'There is no rose', the R.L. Pearsall arrangement of 'In dulci jubilo' , and the entrancing John Rutter 'What sweeter music'. That man certainly knows how to write a good tune! And at the centre of everything the familiar, but spine-tingling story of what a baby's birth two thousand years ago can mean for us today.

                                                           Looks like rein...deer!

St John the Baptist:  1 St. John's Eve

A sonnet for midsummer by Malcolm Guite

Midsummer night, and bonfires on the hill
Burn for the man who makes way for the Light:
'He must increase and I diminish still,
Until his sun illuminates my night.'
So John the Baptist pioneers our path,
Unfolds the essence of the life of prayer,
Unlatches the last doorway into faith,
And makes one inner space an everywhere.
Least of the new and greatest of the old,
Orpheus on the threshold with his lyre,
He sets himself aside, and cries, "Behold
The One who stands amongst you comes with fire!"
So keep his fires burning through this night,
Beacons and gateways for the child of light.

copyright:  Malcolm Guite from 'Sounding the Seasons', Canterbury Press 2012
www.malcolmguite.com

Malcolm is Chaplain at Girton College, Cambridge.

                                                  David at Tea Club earlier this week.


Antiphon:
O Wisdom, coming forth from the mouth of the Most High,
reaching from one end to the other mightily,
and sweetly ordering all things:
Come and teach us the way of prudence.