Tagged: star of Bethlehem
Follow the light
We kept the feast of the Epiphany this Sunday. The feast actually falls on Wednesday 6th, but we pre-empted it as we are allowed to do in the Church of England. Here’s what I said this week.
With all the newspapers filling their pages with news of the Pandemic and Brexit, you wouldn’t think there would be room for anything else.
There it was in the Telegraph headlined: Epiphany 2021 – When should I take the Christmas Tree down? It was in the Express, the Metro, the ‘i’, even Good Housekeeping! And the Daily Mail’s Australia edition even went with A furious debate has erupted over when to pack away Christmas decorations
So two questions which the press think particularly important this year!
When is Twelfth Night?
And when do you take you decorations down?
Continue readingFollow your star home
This Sunday we kept the feast of Epiphany, transferring it from the 6th, as we are allowed to do in the Church of England. This meant that the feast of the Baptism of Christ, which it displaced, was itself transferred to Monday and celebrated with a mass. One of the things we do every year at Epiphany is bless chalk which is then taken home and used to mark the doorways to our homes. There is a very good explanation of this old European tradition here.
How many of you have taken down your Christmas decorations? Most of you, I suspect! (At this point I got people to put their hands up – only one person other than my wife and I still had them up – an Orthodox Christian who was, of course, celebrating Christmas according to the Orthodox calendar).
Well, we still have them up in the vicarage! Let my explain why! If you follow tradition you’ll at least have kept them up for twelfth night which was on Thursday, and then have taken them down on Friday, the feast of Epiphany. However, we are allowed to keep the feast of Epiphany on the nearest Sunday, so this year you can keep them up an extra two days and take them down today. Apart from the crib scene, of course – our knitted crib figures will stay up in the vicarage until Candlemas.
There’s an old superstition that if you don’t take your decorations down the day after twelfth night it will bring bad luck – apparently, the gods of the greenery might escape and take up residence in your house. Continue reading
View from the Valley 