Wednesday 17th December - Zoom Christmas Party and Carol Sevice, O Antiphons

 It's been a packed morning and afternoon and evening...

The Christmas Tree has moved from the hearth rug to the window, had its branches sorted out and the lights added;

It's always pleasing to find the lights are still working; how things have changed from when I was little and they never worked! My mother, even back in the 1950s, always insisted on white lights, not easily available. I remember her, in the 1970s, going through the bowl of mixed spare bulbs on the counter at Selfridges and swapping out all the coloured lights in the string she had just bought for the white ones. The coloured lights were still in fashion then so it wasn't as reprehensible as it sounds...

We're at this stage now. Every year I'm torn between the calm simplicity of just having lights,  or adding tinsel, or having baubles as well,  (but only red, silver or gold!) and finally with or without lametta... decisions, decisions....

........

I'm pretty much flaked out now. The zoom church that I joined over a year ago had its zoom  Christmas Party, followed by zoom Carol Service.  That's a long time to be on a zoom!

We are a proper church in a Leicestershire diocese. Most of the congregation live in a group of villages all close to each other, but some of us live further afield; USA, Spain, and South East of England like me. 

I wondered how a Christmas party would work on zoom, but it was brilliant. Somehow we all received party bags with snacks, Christmas decorations, frivolities like glo-sticks, and a joke. Great fun. It must have taken quite some organising.

 ........

The Antiphon for Thursday 18th December (tomorrow if you are reading this today...) is 

O Adonai (Lord)

Latin:

O Adonai, et Dux domus Israel,

qui Moysi in igne flammae rubi apparuisti,

et ei in Sina legem dedisti:

veni ad redimendum nos in brachio extento.

English (Anglican):

O Adonai, and leader of the House of Israel,

who appeared to Moses in the fire of the burning bush,

and gave him the law on Sinai:

Come and redeem us with an outstretched arm.

I like comparing the latin words with the translation which is why I include both.