Advent Carol service, 2018 and a most apropos reading
  • Hugh
    Posts: 198
    Our Advent Carol Service Booklet, fwiw.

    Incidentally, the Advent Sermon of Peter of Blois (1130 - 1211) which I happily included as our Sixth reading, is IMO just stunning, both theologically and rhetorically (and a hat tip to the translator, whoever they were!) (Thanks to the great Dom Gueranger: "The Liturgical Year"):

    *****

    "There are three comings of our Lord; the first in the flesh, the second in the soul, the third at the judgement.
    The first was at midnight, according to those words of the Gospel: “At midnight there was a cry made, Lo the Bridegroom cometh!”

    But this first coming is long since past, for Christ has been seen on the earth and has conversed among men.

    We are now in the second coming, provided only we are such as that He may thus come to us; for He has said that if we love him, He will come unto us and will take up His abode with us. So that this second coming is full of uncertainty to us; for who, save the Spirit of God, knows them that are of God? They that are raised out of themselves by the desire of heavenly things know indeed when He comes; but whence He cometh, or whither He goeth, they know not.

    As for the third coming, it is most certain that it will be, most uncertain when it will be; for nothing is more sure than death, and nothing less sure than the hour of death. “When they shall say, ‘peace and security’”, says the apostle, “then shall sudden destruction come upon them, as the pains upon her that is with child, and they shall not escape.”

    So that the first coming was humble and hidden, the second is mysterious and full of love, the third will be majestic and terrible.

    In His first coming, Christ was judged by men unjustly; in His second, He renders us just by His grace; in His third, He will judge all things with justice.

    In His first, a lamb; in His last, a lion; in the one between the two, the tenderest of friends.’
  • Hugh
    Posts: 198
    I meant to add: Peter of Blois (1130 -1211) is not a canonized saint. His sublime words are just what the more thoughtful Catholic assented to back then. Yes, he was, amongst other things, a poet. But the ideas he has so beautifully expressed here are what all Catholics then might have thought, at least implicitly.

    Peter of Blois, R.I.P.
  • Baeutiful, Hugh!
    One of the very nicest L&Cs I've ever seen.
    And your service folder is exemplary.

    (And, I shall look up Peter of Blois
    [I once, in high school, designed a grey-stone manor with a copy of the famed staircase of the chateau of Blois].)
    Thanked by 1Hugh
  • Certainly a very nice booklet, BUT...not one mention of a composer anywhere.
  • Contrabourdon is right -
    One should always give composers or tune names in the right margin, and author's names or sources beneath their texts.
    Thanked by 2CHGiffen Hugh