“You are good and all-powerful, caring for each one of us as though the only one in your care, and yet for all as for each individual.”
–Confessions 3.11.19, Chadwick translation
Plaque with the Nativity c. 1165
— John McCafferty (@jdmccafferty) December 31, 2024
South Netherlandish (Met Museum) pic.twitter.com/9blKsEkTgZ
What has happened to me has been the very reverse of what appears to be the experience of most of my friends. Instead of dwindling to a point, Santa Claus has grown larger and larger in my mind and fills almost the whole of it. It happened in this way.As a child, I was faced with a phenomenon requiring explanation. I hung up at the end of my bed an empty stocking, which in the morning became a full stocking. I had done nothing to produce the things that filled it. I had not even worked for them, or made them or helped to make them. I had not even been good – far from it.
And the explanation was that a certain being whom people called Santa Claus was benevolently disposed towards me. What we believed was that a certain benevolent agency did give us those toys for nothing. And, as I say, I believe it still.
I have merely extended the idea.
Then, I only wondered who put the toys in the stocking. Now I wonder who put the stocking by the bed, and the bed in the room, and the room in the house, and the house on the planet, and the great planet in the void.
Once, I only thanked God for a few dolls and crackers. Now, I thank him for stars and street faces, and wine and the great sea.
Once, I thought it delightful and astonishing to find a present so big that it only went halfway into the stocking. Now I am delighted and astonished every morning to find a present so big that it takes two stockings to hold it, and then leaves a great deal outside.
–From “The Other Stocking” which may be found there.
My Christmas stocking from when I was a child. It was hanging up at Mum and Dad's place for Christmas. If I remember correctly, it was knitted by my Nanna.#TheDrumAndPage pic.twitter.com/nkSU7zb70p
— Adam Is What I Give (@RevHappiness) December 28, 2024
Give us grace, O God, to love thee in all things and above all things, that following the example of thy servant Elizabeth Ann Seton we might express our love for thee in the service of others. Through Jesus Christ our Lord, who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Ghost, one God, in glory everlasting. Amen.
O God, who as at this time didst send thy Son to be the Saviour of the world, teach us to thank thee for thine unspeakable gift. Help us to hate the evil that he came to destroy, and to receive the eternal life that he lived and died to bestow; that so we may love thee with all our power and may serve our day and generation according to thy will; through the same Jesus Christ our Lord.
–The Rev Harry Bisseker (1878-1965)
Now Moses was keeping the flock of his father-in-law, Jethro, the priest of Mid′ian; and he led his flock to the west side of the wilderness, and came to Horeb, the mountain of God. And the angel of the Lord appeared to him in a flame of fire out of the midst of a bush; and he looked, and lo, the bush was burning, yet it was not consumed. And Moses said, “I will turn aside and see this great sight, why the bush is not burnt.” When the Lord saw that he turned aside to see, God called to him out of the bush, “Moses, Moses!” And he said, “Here am I.” Then he said, “Do not come near; put off your shoes from your feet, for the place on which you are standing is holy ground.” And he said, “I am the God of your father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.” And Moses hid his face, for he was afraid to look at God.
Then the Lord said, “I have seen the affliction of my people who are in Egypt, and have heard their cry because of their taskmasters; I know their sufferings, and I have come down to deliver them out of the hand of the Egyptians, and to bring them up out of that land to a good and broad land, a land flowing with milk and honey, to the place of the Canaanites, the Hittites, the Amorites, the Per′izzites, the Hivites, and the Jeb′usites. And now, behold, the cry of the people of Israel has come to me, and I have seen the oppression with which the Egyptians oppress them. Come, I will send you to Pharaoh that you may bring forth my people, the sons of Israel, out of Egypt.” But Moses said to God, “Who am I that I should go to Pharaoh, and bring the sons of Israel out of Egypt?” He said, “But I will be with you; and this shall be the sign for you, that I have sent you: when you have brought forth the people out of Egypt, you shall serve God upon this mountain.”
–Exodus 3:1-12
Good morning. Misty start to Saturday. 🌅 ✨🏡 pic.twitter.com/VZb1OgT6oG
— Sharon Welby📷 (@sharonwelby1) January 4, 2025
This Gospel is so clear that it requires very little explanation, but it should be well considered and taken deeply to heart; and no one will receive more benefit from it than those who, with a calm, quiet heart, banish everything else from their mind, and diligently look into it. It is just as the sun which is reflected in calm water and gives out vigorous warmth, but which cannot be so readily seen nor can it give out such warmth in water that is in roaring and rapid motion.
Therefore, if you would be enlightened and warmed, if you would see the wonders of divine grace and have your heart aglow and enlightened, devout and joyful, go where you can silently meditate and lay hold of this picture deep in your heart, and you will see miracle upon miracle. But to give the common person a start and a motive to contemplate it, we will illustrate it in part, and afterwards enter into it more deeply.
First, behold how very ordinary and common things are to us that transpire on earth, and yet how high they are regarded in heaven. On earth it occurs in this wise: Here is a poor young woman, Mary of Nazareth, not highly esteemed, but of the humblest citizens of the village. No one is conscious of the great wonder she bears, she is silent, keeps her own counsel, and regards herself as the lowliest in the town. She starts out with her husband Joseph; very likely they had no servant, and he had to do the work of master and servant, and she that of mistress and maid, They were therefore obliged to leave their home unoccupied, or commend it to the care of others.
Nativity scene, 15th cent. –
— Emmanouela Grypeou (@EGrypeou) December 24, 2023
Look out for Joseph cooking, while Mary rests and the animals keep baby Jesus entertained.
University of Oxford
University College MS5 pic.twitter.com/zOuKhLFTXn
Therefore, brethren, may this be the result of my admonition, that you understand that in raising your hearts to the Scriptures (when the gospel was sounding forth, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God,” and the rest that was read), you were lifting your eyes to the mountains. For unless the mountains said these things, you would not find out how to think of them at all. Therefore from the mountains came your help, that you even heard of these things; but you cannot yet understand what you have heard. Call for help from the Lord, who made heaven and earth; for the mountains were enabled only so to speak as not of themselves to illuminate, because they themselves are also illuminated by hearing. Thence John, who said these things, received them””he who lay on the Lord’s breast, and from the Lord’s breast drank in what he might give us to drink. But he gave us words to drink.
Thou oughtest then to receive understanding from the source from which he drank who gave thee to drink; so that thou mayest lift up thine eyes to the mountains from whence shall come thine aid, so that from thence thou mayest receive, as it were, the cup, that is, the word, given thee to drink; and yet, since thy help is from the Lord, who made heaven and earth, thou mayest fill thy breast from the source from which he filled his; whence thou saidst, “My help is from the Lord, who made heaven and earth:” let him, then, fill who can. Brethren, this is what I have said: Let each one lift up his heart in the manner that seems fitting, and receive what is spoken. But perhaps you will say that I am more present to you than God. Far be such a thought from you! He is much more present to you; for I appear to your eyes, He presides over your consciences. Give me then your ears, Him your hearts, that you may fill both. Behold, your eyes, and those your bodily senses, you lift up to us; and yet not to us, for we are not of those mountains, but to the gospel itself, to the evangelist himself: your hearts, however, to the Lord to be filled. Moreover, let each one so lift up as to see what he lifts up, and whither. What do I mean by saying, “what he lifts up, and whither?” Let him see to it what sort of a heart he lifts up, because it is to the Lord he lifts it up, lest, encumbered by a load of fleshly pleasure, it fall ere ever it is raised. But does each one see that he bears a burden of flesh? Let him strive by continence to purify that which he may lift up to God. For “Blessed are the pure in heart, because they shall see God.”
🖼️ The Mystic Nativity
— Glimpses of Culture 🏛️ (@CharmOfCulture) December 25, 2024
👨🎨 Sandro Botticelli
Wishing you all a Merry Christmas and a peaceful New Year! 🎄✨
Here is a short thread on some beautiful paintings of the Nativity. pic.twitter.com/FcmPjp3V21
My own feeling is that writers who see by the light of their Christian faith will have, in these times, the sharpest eyes for the grotesque, for the perverse, and for the unacceptable. In some cases, these writers may be unconsciously infected with the Manichaean spirit of the times and suffer the much-discussed disjunction between sensibility and belief, but I think that more often the reason for this attention to the perverse is the difference between their beliefs and the beliefs of their audience. Redemption is meaningless unless there is case for it in the actual life we live, and for the last few centuries there has been operating in our culture the secular belief that there is no such cause.
The novelist with Christian concerns will find in modern life distortions which are repugnant to him, and his problem will be to make these appear as distortions to an audience which is used to seeing them as natural; and he may well be forced to take ever more violent means to get his vision across to this hostile audience. When you can assume that your audience holds the same beliefs as you do, you can relax a little and use more normal means of talking to it; when you have to assume that it does not, then you have to make your vision apparent by shock, to the hard of hearing you shout, and for the almost-blind, you draw large and startling figures.
—Mystery and Manners: Occasional Prose (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1969) pp. 33-34 [my emphasis]
Arthur Hughes, The Nativity, c.1858 pic.twitter.com/jUr8jmb4EE
— Solas (@solas_na_greine) December 16, 2024
“My idea of God is not a divine idea. It has to be shattered time after time. He shatters it himself. He is the great iconoclast. Could we not almost say that this shattering is one of the marks of his presence? The Incarnation is the supreme example; it leaves all previous ideas of the Messiah in ruins.”
—A Grief Observed [London: Faber&Faber, 1961], p.52
Peace & Goodwill to all! #StainedGlass #Nativity (c.1929/30) by #JosephEdwardNuttgens at #Windsor Parish Church @ArtGuideAlex @TheCCT @friendschurches @C20Society @NatChurchTrust @HistoricEngland @heritage_lizzie @frome_maude @CityGuideJill @ianarchiebeck @ArtWorkersGuild pic.twitter.com/3bSex3LUwB
— BSMGP (@BSMGP) December 25, 2024
Merciful and most loving God, by whose will and bountiful gift Jesus Christ our Lord humbled himself that he might exalt mankind; and became flesh that he might restore in us the most celestial image; and was born of the Virgin that he might uplift the lowly: Grant unto us the inheritance of the meek, perfect us in thy likeness, and bring us at last to rejoice in beholding thy beauty, and with all thy saints to glorify thy grace; through the same Jesus Christ our Lord.
Merry Christmas to all.
— Rupak Chattopadhyay (@RupakChatto) December 24, 2024
Nativity painting from the Imperial court of Mohammad Shah, by Nidha Mal c.1720. pic.twitter.com/6jmBo9INhY
Jacob left Beer-sheba, and went toward Haran. And he came to a certain place, and stayed there that night, because the sun had set. Taking one of the stones of the place, he put it under his head and lay down in that place to sleep. And he dreamed that there was a ladder set up on the earth, and the top of it reached to heaven; and behold, the angels of God were ascending and descending on it! And behold, the Lord stood above it and said, “I am the Lord, the God of Abraham your father and the God of Isaac; the land on which you lie I will give to you and to your descendants; and your descendants shall be like the dust of the earth, and you shall spread abroad to the west and to the east and to the north and to the south; and by you and your descendants shall all the families of the earth bless themselves. Behold, I am with you and will keep you wherever you go, and will bring you back to this land; for I will not leave you until I have done that of which I have spoken to you.” Then Jacob awoke from his sleep and said, “Surely the Lord is in this place; and I did not know it.” And he was afraid, and said, “How awesome is this place! This is none other than the house of God, and this is the gate of heaven.”
–Genesis 28:10-17
Peeping through 👀
— Durham Cathedral (@durhamcathedral) January 3, 2025
Thank you to Andy Kelly for this photo 📷 pic.twitter.com/f850fc8pVR
Ring out, wild bells, to the wild sky,
The flying cloud, the frosty light;
The year is dying in the night;
Ring out, wild bells, and let him die.
Ring out the old, ring in the new,
Ring, happy bells, across the snow:
The year is going, let him go;
Ring out the false, ring in the true.
Ring out the grief that saps the mind,
For those that here we see no more,
Ring out the feud of rich and poor,
Ring in redress to all mankind.
Ring out a slowly dying cause,
And ancient forms of party strife;
Ring in the nobler modes of life,
With sweeter manners, purer laws.
Ring out the want, the care the sin,
The faithless coldness of the times;
Ring out, ring out my mournful rhymes,
But ring the fuller minstrel in.
Ring out false pride in place and blood,
The civic slander and the spite;
Ring in the love of truth and right,
Ring in the common love of good.
Ring out old shapes of foul disease,
Ring out the narrowing lust of gold;
Ring out the thousand wars of old,
Ring in the thousand years of peace.
Ring in the valiant man and free,
The larger heart, the kindlier hand;
Ring out the darkness of the land,
Ring in the Christ that is to be.
–Lord Alfred Tennyson (1809-1892)
I have a friend who teaches in the upper peninsula in Michigan. He has one of those schools that run from kindergarten all the way up through eighth grade, including special ed. One of his students was intellectually slow, couldn’t do very well in classes. And when Christmas Pageant time came he wanted to have a part in the Pageant. What’s more, he wanted a speaking part. He wouldn’t settle for anything less.
So they made into the innkeeper. They figured he could handle that because all he had to do was say, “No room,” twice: once before Mary spoke, once after she spoke. The night of the Pageant, Mary knocks on the door he opens the door, and he says in a brusque fashion, “No room!” Mary says, “But I’m sick, and I’m cold, and I’m going to have a baby, and if you don’t give me a place to sleep, my baby will be born in the cold, cold night.”
He just stood there. The boy behind him nudged him and said, “No room, No room, say, “No room.’” And finally, he turned and he said, “I know what I’m supposed to say, but she can have my room.”
–Anthony Campolo in William H. Willimon Ed, Sermons from Duke Chapel: Voices from “A Great Towering Church” (Durham: Duke University Press, 2005), p.294
Ich wünsche euch allen Frohe Weihnachten und ein paar ruhige und besinnliche Festtage ! pic.twitter.com/xAxtjbTUbU
— Thomas Stiegler (@StieglerThomas) December 25, 2024
Enjoy it all from the London Symphony Orchestra.
“Be not afraid; for behold, I bring you Good News of a great joy . . . This day is born the Savior,” that is, he who, as Son of God and Son of the Father, has traveled (in obedience to the Father) the path that leads away from the Father and into the darkness of the world. Behind him omnipotence and freedom; before, powerlessness, bonds and obedience. Behind him the comprehensive divine vision; before him the prospect of the meaninglessness of death on the Cross between two criminals, Behind him the bliss of life with the Father; before him, grievous solidarity with all who do not know the Father, do not want to know him and deny his existence. Rejoice then, for God himself has passed this way! The Son took with him the awareness of doing the Father’s will. He took with him the unceasing prayer that the Father’s will would be done on the dark earth as in the brightness of heaven. He took with him his rejoicing that the Father had hidden these things from the wise and revealed them to babes, to the simple and the poor. “I am the way,” and this way is “the truth” for you; along this way you will find “the life.” Along “the way” that I am you will learn to lose your life in order to find it; you will learn to grow beyond yourselves and your insincerity into a truth that is greater than you are. From a worldly point of view everything may seem very dark; your dedication may seem unproductive and a failure. But do not be afraid: you are on God’s path. “Let not your hearts be troubled: believe in God; believe also in me.” I am walking on ahead of you and blazing the trail of Christian love for you. It leads to your most inaccessible brother, the person most forsaken by God. But it is the path of divine love itself. You are on the right path. All who deny themselves in order to carry out love’s commission are on the right path.
Miracles happen along this path. Apparently insignificant miracles, noticed by hardly anyone. The very finding of a Child wrapped in swaddling clothes, lying in a manger—is this not a miracle in itself? Then there is the miracle when a particular mission, hidden in a person’s heart, really reaches its goal, bringing God’s peace and joy where there were nothing but despair and resignation; when someone succeeds in striking a tiny light in the midst of an overpowering darkness. When joy irradiates a heart that no longer dared to believe in it. Now and again we ourselves are assured that the angel’s word we are trying to obey will bring us to the place where God’s Word and Son is already made man. We are assured that, in spite of all the noise and nonsense, today, December 25, is Christmas just as truly as two millennia ago. Once and for all God has started out on his journey toward us, and nothing, till the world’s end, will stop him from coming to us and abiding in us.
'Arise, shine, for your light has come, and the glory of the Lord has risen upon you'
— Westminster Abbey (@wabbey) January 2, 2025
Isaiah 60: 1 pic.twitter.com/D6VppA25YR
These things have served their purpose: let them be.
So with your own, and pray they be forgiven
By others, as I pray you to forgive
Both bad and good. Last season’s fruit is eaten
And the fullfed beast shall kick the empty pail.
For last year’s words belong to last year’s language
And next year’s words await another voice.
–Little Gidding
Wishing everyone a Happy New Year! pic.twitter.com/2EpnGAKGzp
— Catherine Munro (@CatherineMMunro) January 1, 2025
Emmanuel, God with us, who didst make thy home in every culture and community on earth: We offer thanks for the raising up of thy servant Samuel Azariah as the first indigenous bishop in India. Grant that we may be strengthened by his witness to thy love without concern for class or caste, and by his labors for the unity of the Church in India, that people of many languages and cultures might with one voice give thee glory, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, now and for ever. Amen.
Today we remember Vedanayagam Samuel Azariah, like my father-in-law a native of Tamil Nadu. He was the first person of Indian descent to be ordained as a bishop in the Anglican church. He was also a tireless evangelist who often traveled around his diocese by bicycle. 🧵 pic.twitter.com/DoyVV00Ih9
— Amy Mantravadi (@AmyMantravadi) January 2, 2024
O Lord our God, who didst manifest thy love toward us by sending thine only begotten Son into the world, that we might live through him : Grant us, by thy Holy Spirit, the precious gift of faith, whereby we may know that the Son of God has come; and help us to join our praises with the song of the heavenly host : Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, goodwill towards men.
A lovely and fresh sunrise over the Great Ouse in Ely this Thursday morning the 2nd of January 2025 🦢🧡🦢 #Sunrise #NewYear #LoveNature pic.twitter.com/KAwwDXVddM
— Veronica in the Fens 🧚🏼♀️ My Heart in Nature (@VeronicaJoPo) January 2, 2025
Now the LORD said to Abram, “Go from your country and your kindred and your father’s house to the land that I will show you. And I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you, and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and him who curses you I will curse; and by you all the families of the earth shall bless themselves.” So Abram went, as the LORD had told him; and Lot went with him. Abram was seventy-five years old when he departed from Haran. And Abram took Sar’ai his wife, and Lot his brother’s son, and all their possessions which they had gathered, and the persons that they had gotten in Haran; and they set forth to go to the land of Canaan. When they had come to the land of Canaan, Abram passed through the land to the place at Shechem, to the oak of Moreh. At that time the Canaanites were in the land. Then the LORD appeared to Abram, and said, “To your descendants I will give this land.” So he built there an altar to the LORD, who had appeared to him.
–Genesis 12:1-7
☃️☕🌞 Guten Morgen 🌞☕☃️ pic.twitter.com/DJvBzlKyHy
— Brigitta Neurauter (@BrigittaNeurau2) January 2, 2025
Almighty God, your blessed Son fulfilled the covenant of circumcision for our sake, and was given the Name that is above every name: Give us grace faithfully to bear his Name, and to worship him with pure hearts according to the New Covenant; who lives and reigns with you, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.
Feast of the Holy Name of Jesus
— Memento Mori (@TempusFugit4016) January 2, 2024
"He humbled himself, becoming obedient unto death, even to the death of the cross. For which cause God also hath exalted him, and hath given him a name which is above all names: That in the name of Jesus every knee should bow" – Phil 2, 8-10 pic.twitter.com/2OcnGE8EHk
God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, whose years never fail, and whose mercies are new each returning day: let the radiance of your Spirit renew our lives, warming our hearts and giving light to our minds; that we may pass the coming year in joyful obedience and firm faith; through him who is the beginning and the end, your son, Christ our Lord, who is alive and reigns with you ,in the unity the Holy Spirit, one God now and forever amen.
#HappyNewYear2025 from Waterfront Park. #Charleston SC. @SheaGibsonWx @RobStormTeam2 @JedChristophWX @JimCantore @chswx @weatherchannel @WeatherNation @scwxpix @NWSCharlestonSC pic.twitter.com/neJKcHML72
— Ken Bowman (@kenbowmanphoto) January 1, 2025
From there:
And I said to the man who stood at the gate of the year: ‘Give me a light that I may tread safely into the unknown.’ And he replied: ‘Go out into the darkness and put your hand into the Hand of God. That shall be to you better than light and safer than a known way.’ So I went forth, and finding the Hand of God, trod gladly into the night. And He led me towards the hills and the breaking of day in the lone East.
Happy New Year from Tokyo 🎆 pic.twitter.com/TK4z3h6KV4
— Pictures (@piitures) December 31, 2021
so this is the sound of you
here and now whether or not
anyone hears it this is
where we have come with our age
our knowledge such as it is
and our hopes such as they are
Happy New Year from everyone at Durham Cathedral
— Durham Cathedral (@durhamcathedral) January 1, 2025
We pray you have a blessed 2025
📷 shootingwithle pic.twitter.com/Oiazvy0ANz
Eternal Lord
we give you thanks for bringing us through the changes of time to the beginning of another year
Forgive us the wrong we have done in the year that is past
and help us to spend the rest of our days
to your honour and glory
through Jesus Christ our Lord.
✨🍀✨ Happy New Year ✨🍀✨ pic.twitter.com/SStM4tB8NN
— 💫Stein_harmonie🍀🧚♀️ (@SteinHarmonie) January 1, 2025
1 Wisdom ascribe, and might and praise
To God, who lengthens out our days,
Who spares us yet another year,
And lets us see His goodness here;
Happy, and wise, the time redeem,
And live, my friends, and die to Him.2 How often when His arm was bared,
Hath He our sinful Israel spared!
Let them alone, His mercy cried,
And turn’d the vengeful bolt aside,
Indulged another kind reprieve,
And strangely suffer’d us to live.3 Laid to the root with conscious awe,
But now the threatening axe we saw,
We saw when Jesus stepp’d between,
To part the punishment and sin,
He pleaded for the blood-bought race,
And God vouchsafed a longer space!4 Still in the doubtful balance weigh’d
We trembled, while the remnant pray’d:
The Father heard His Spirit groan,
And answer’d mild, It is My Son!
He let the prayer of faith prevail,
And mercy turn’d the hovering scale.5 Merciful God, how shall we raise
Our hearts to pay Thee all Thy praise!
Our hearts shall beat for Thee alone,
Our lives shall make Thy goodness known,
Our souls and bodies shall be Thine,
A living sacrifice Divine.6 I, and my house, will serve the Lord,
Led by the Spirit and the word;
We plight our faith, assembled here,
To serve our God the ensuing year;
And vow, when time shall be no more,
Through all eternity to adore.
–Charles Wesley as found in The Poetical Works Of John And Charles Wesley, Vol. VI,Ed. G. Osborn (London: Wesleyan-Methodist Conference Office, 1870), pp. 9-10
Wishing you all a very happy new year 🥂take a pew and enjoy my North York Moors view 😊#HappyNewYear2025 pic.twitter.com/ukBLEtfLc7
— Nicky (@Nicky13Johnson) January 1, 2025
O almighty God, who hast given unto thy Son Jesus Christ the name which is above every name, and hast taught us that there is none other whereby we may be saved: Mercifully grant that as thy faithful people have comfort and peace in his name, so they may ever labour to publish it unto all nations; through the same Jesus Christ our Lord.
–Scottish Prayer Book
"Whenever you hear the Holy Name of Jesus pronounced, bow your head; do so likewise every time you say His Sacred Name." – St. Bernardine pic.twitter.com/Qp4avclr5K
— Memento Mori (@TempusFugit4016) January 2, 2024
As therefore you received Christ Jesus the Lord, so live in him, rooted and built up in him and established in the faith, just as you were taught, abounding in thanksgiving.
–Colossians 2:6-7
" Jedem Anfang wohnt ein Zauber inne, der uns beschützt und der uns hilft, zu leben." (Hermann Hesse)
— Brigitta Neurauter (@BrigittaNeurau2) January 1, 2025
🍀🐞EIN GUTES NEUES JAHR 🐞🍀
🍀🐞HAPPY NEW YEAR🐞🍀 pic.twitter.com/gVoN3stWYW