Monday 23rd December - the last O Antiphon

The Antiphons take us up to the 23rd... I'm not sure what follows on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. Maybe I'll search and find out, maybe not.

Today has not been wonderful. We spent the most of the day with my 95 year-old father. He fell in the bathroom, second time this month. Last time it looked as though an axe murder scene had been in progress as part of an am-dram production  - my word, how a scalp wound can bleed...

This time, there was no blood, butvmore worryingly, he said his hip was hurting... by the time an ambulance arrived it seemed more likely that his hip is just bruised, rather than broken. 

He fell again in the afternoon just as the paramedics arrived, and he is now in A & E. We are both at home waiting for more news tomorrow. 

This is where my health situation really bites; I, and therefore BB, have to be so scrupulous in avoiding any chance of getting any kind of respiratory infection. I would dearly love to be there with him, but would need to take a trolley load of oxygen cylinders and also risk all the coughs and sneezes from other people in the waiting area. So here we are and there he is, and we just pray.

So no stitching, no reading, no concentrating on anything. And BB has been running in ever-decreasing circles, so it seems, all day.

23 December – O Emmanuel

O Emmanuel, our King and our lawgiver,

the hope of the nations and their Saviour:

Come and save us, O Lord our God. cf Isaiah 7.14

And from the Order For Evening Prayer 

Lighten our darkness, we beseech thee, O Lord; and by thy great mercy defend us from all perils and dangers of this night; for the love of thy only Son, our Saviour, Jesus Christ. Amen.