Fourth Sunday in Advent

We enjoyed a wonderful day of worship and music today. The day dawned overcast and with a few snow flurries around, but by the time we came out of church after service and advent study, the snow had moved out, and the sun was shining, but still pretty cool. The church looked beautiful this morning with the addition of the poinsettias around the altar and the candle holders down the aisle. We had a small orchestra to accompany the anthem and hymns this morning, as we will for Christmas Eve service. Our anthem was a beautiful haunting arrangement of O Little Town of Bethlehem, written for choir and orchestra with a solo part for soprano saxophone. The Praise band sang the beautiful Mary did You Know, and our soprano choral scholar sang a fabulous Mark Hayes Christmas medley arrangement with Tom on the piano, as postlude. Afterwards the refreshment consisted of cake, celebrating the 50th wedding anniversary of one of our choir members and her husband. Then it was the final study of our Advent study, Not a silent night, by Adam Hamilton, which highlights the experiences of Mary throughout her life.
We had turned our phones off during the morning, not only from the point of view of being silent during the service, but we also didn’t want to hear the World Cup final score before we watched it belatedly in the afternoon! We managed to watch the full regular time, but not the extra time, before we went out again, downtown to Christ Church Cathedral for their Service of Lessons and Carols, preceded by a 30 minute organ recital. It was very much after the style of Kings College Cambridge choir which we always listen to on Christmas Eve. They have an excellent (adult) choir and music director. Some of the carols by the choir I knew but there were a few lovely contemporary ones too. Then of course there were several congregational carols/hymns too. It was followed by a very nice buffet reception, so we didn’t need much to eat when we got home, and finished watching the rest of the match!
A wonderful inspiring Sunday truly putting me in the Christmas spirit, and making me so thankful for this time of year when we remember and celebrate the coming of Jesus into this world, and so blessed that we are able to worship freely, and have access to all this glorious music, and especially thankful to my Mum for instilling in me that love of music, and whose birthday it would have been today.