Services This Week
Dear All,
Services this week are taking place in person or via livestream through our YouTube Channel. Please find gathering times and service sheet links below.
Friday 19 December
10.30am - BCP Holy Communion (Revd Dr Mark Scarlata)
Sunday 21 December / Fourth Sunday of Advent
11am - Holy Communion
Sermon: ‘O Come, Emmanuel’
Service Sheet: Here
Other notices:
Barnes 500 Events: The recordings of both Prof. Richard Rex’s 5 December StED Talk on Robert Barnes, and Prof. Alec Ryrie’s 6 December lecture on the same, can be viewed here and here, respectively.
Giving: We are grateful for all of your gifts! Offerings may be made via BACS (Sort: 20-17-19 / Acc. No.: 30851477 / Acc. Name: St Edwards Church), for standing orders, or the SumUp machine on the table by the door, for contactless giving. There is also a wall-mounted deposit box by the door for cash and/or cheques.
Exciting Holiness (Wednesday 17 December):
For this day of the year, the cryptic phrase O Sapientia appears in the Book of Common Prayer of 1662 without explanation. However, 17 December marks the start of the week before the celebration of Christmas, the birth of Christ, and at evensong, the great Song of Mary, Magnificat, has a refrain or antiphon attached to it proclaiming the ascriptions or ‘names’ given to God through the Old Testament. Each name develops into a prophecy of the forthcoming and eagerly-anticipated Messiah, Jesus, the Son of God. O Sapientia, or O Wisdom, is the first of these days, followed on 18 December by O Adonai, then O Root of Jesse, O Key of David, O Dayspring, O King of the Nations and finally on 23 December O Emmanuel. In the old Sarum rite, these were sung one day earlier, beginning on 16 December, requiring another ascription for 23 December, this being O Virgin of Virgins. Since this was clearly apposite to the Blessed Virgin Mary, and not a ‘title’ of God, it was not adopted much beyond Sarum and, with the revision of the Calendar, Anglicans have adopted the more widely-used formulae and dating.
O Lord Jesus Christ, who at your first coming sent your messenger to prepare your way before you: grant that the ministers and stewards of your mysteries may likewise so prepare and make ready your way by turning the hearts of the disobedient to the wisdom of the just, that at your second coming to judge the world we may be found an acceptable people in your sight; for you are alive and reign with the Father in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.
