Ceremony for Candlemas Eve
Down with rosemary, and so
Down with the bays and mistletoe;
Down with the holly, ivy, all
Wherewith you dressed the Christmas Hall;
That so the superstitious find
No one least branch there left behind;
For look, how many leaves there be
Neglected, there [maids, trust to me]
So many Goblins you shall see.
Ceremony for Candlemas Day
Kindle the Christmas brand, and then
till sunset let it burn;
Which quench’d, then lay it up again
Till Christmas next return.
Part must be kept wherewith to teend
The Christmas log next year.
And where ‘tis safety kept, the fiend
Can do no mischief there.
End now the white-loaf and the pie,
And let all sports with Christmas die.Robert Herrick
Is Christmas over? In the shops it was over on Boxing Day and even in homes it seldom lasts beyond New Year or Epiphany at the very most. Somehow, after all the preparation, it doesn’t seem to last long, does it? The presents that took so long to find are opened in a moment, the food is all eaten up [we don’t eat turkey in our household so don’t have that to linger tediously on] and everything goes back to normal. The holly, ivy and all will be taken down very soon – 7th January in church though we’ll our splendid new crib figures up for another week so that everyone can see that the kings have arrived.
But it wasn’t always like that and the church season of Christmas lasted until Candlemas; decorations stayed up, and until the 18th century, a certain sense of celebration seems to have permeated people’s lives. Maybe the need to get everyone back to work was responsible for the progressive curtailment of the season so that now we are enjoined to start thinking about summer holidays and spring wardrobes before the decorations are put away. But Christmas isn’t over. The liturgical season lasts until epiphany and epiphany until the Presentation / Candlemas which this year ends the month, falling on 30th January – which is also Homelessness Sunday, a not inappropriate date considering the homeless state of Jesus and his parents during his first months of life. The weather at Candlemas is said to be indicative of the weather for the rest of winter – if Candlemas be fine an fair we’ll have two winters in one year [remember Groundhog Day?] But maybe after all we’ve already had thrown at us we’ll be let off this year.
The change in the weather after Christmas was perhaps the best of gifts for many people. Suddenly it was wet and mild and instead of grumbling about the rain everyone was glad and ready to look forward hopefully to the New Year. So what’s in store for us at the church?
Lottery project
.There’s a new season of History guided walks starting on 8th January and do read Honia Devlin’s report further on in this issue. Honia works enormously hard for the project and has almost become part of the church team she spends so much time here. From leaf gall to mending walls she’s on top of it all
Christmas left-overs
No, not turkey, but there are other things the church can use. If like me, you always end up with odd sized envelopes when you’ve finished writing your Christmas cards please bring them to the Traidcraft stall. We have a large number of cards of all shapes and sizes without envelopes which we could sell if we could match them up.
And unwanted gifts – please keep them for the Spring Fair [7th May]. You may not like it/have room for it but someone else might.
The Authorised Version
2011 sees the 400th anniversary of the King James Bible and The Globe Theatre is celebrating with “an attempt to read aloud as much as we can pack in over the Easter Weekend, leaving a little space to open our season with a small scale production of Hamlet – two principal foundation stones of modern English, in all their glorious Jacobean fulsomeness”. Hamlet and The Bible in one weekend, wow – and we thought Easter was hard work in churches.
In the February issue we hope to have a list of dates for the year but for now let me draw your attention to two items:
A new project for us in 2011 is a series of lunchtime events on 1st and 3rd Wednesdays of each month at 1.15pm. A musical event on the 1st, a literary one on 3rd – do check the details further on this magazine and on posters and leaflets around the church. So far the programme is set up to May but information about the following months will become available as the events are fixed. This is all free entertainment though we are asking for a donation to help with costs [any surplus will go to the church fabric fund].
The Study Centre starts again on January 26th with a short series on St Matthew’s Gospel. The full programme should be available soon.
January
Judy East