A French lady asked me when her children should open thir presents: should it be today transferred Epiphany or Thursday calendar Epiphany.
Last year an Oriental Rite Catholic whose main Christmas celebration is the Epiphany was quite upset that she wouldn't be able to get to an Epiphany celebration on her "Christmas", she wondered about the legitimacy of sneaking into a Greek Orthodox Liturgy. It is a problem for those Christians in Communion with the Church who don't keep the Nativity with much solemnity.
Then of course the CofE and the BBC will keep the Epiphany on Thursday, here in Brighton even the local authority seems to identify Thursday as the end of Christmas as the schools go back on that day. I presume when the Ordinariate along with Hymns Ancient and Modern will assume 12 Days of Christmas is part of their patrimony. In our school the 15% or so of Coptic Orthodox children will be there on the 6th but not a single one will be there on the 7th because that is their Christmas.
Here, next Thursday, the 6th January in the evening there is an EF Mass for the Epiphany at 7pm and in the morning at 10am for our school children there is a children's Mass for our school's beginning of term which will (or should) begin with a procession from the playground of "kings"; Chrysostom, I think, speculated there were at least 40 Magi, all of whom brought the three gifts. Homework over Christmas has been making crowns, which will be deposited around the crib before Mass.
What does one do with them, if one can't send to your true love, the twelve lords leaping, eleven ladies dancing, ten pipers piping, nine drummers drumming?
3 comments:
Suggest they join the Dagenham Girl Pipers and Supporters' Club.
Will you be blessing chalk at the Epiphany Mass, Father?
On 26 December we had the Holy Family with Matthew 2:13-15 and 19-23. "After the wise men had left" the Holy Family were advised to flee to Egypt. Then on Sunday 2 January we had Matthew 2:1-12 with the visit of the wise men. Presumably we are supposed to have forgotten that the Holy Family had left for Egypt by then.
I think that the reception of three Anglican bishops into the Church marks a moment of some significance which gives us something to celebrate on Epiphany. It was, of course, not mentioned at Sunday Mass. I suspect that the gifts these three bring will be appreciated more by the faithful than by the leaders of the Church in these islands.
Let us pray for these, and their fellow converts, particularly in this interim time whilst they have left their roles in the CofE and have no role yet in the Catholic Church. The quality of their welcome may encourage others to come over too.
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