Bowland Benefice Pews News
22 and 29 December 2024

Collect

Almighty God, as we prepare with joy
to celebrate the gift of the Christ-child,
embrace the earth with your glory
and be for us a living hope in Jesus Christ our Lord.
This Fortnight in the Benefice

Sunday
22 December

9.30am

Holy
Communion in
White Ladies
Aston
6.00pm Carol Service in
Upton
Snodsbury

Tuesday
24 December
Christmas
Eve

8.30pm

Christmas
Communion in
Upton
Snodsbury
11.30pm Midnight Mass
in Peopleton

Wednesday
25 December
Christmas Day

10.00am

Carol Service in
White Ladies
Aston

Sunday
29 December
Christmas 1

10.30am

Benefice Holy
Communion in
Broughton
Hackett

Sunday
5 January
Epiphany

10.30am Family Service
in Upton
Snodsbury
11.00am Holy
Communion in
Peopleton
6.00pm Evensong in
White Ladies
Aston
Revd Claire says…..

The fourth Sunday of Advent is a time to celebrate
God's faithfulness in sending Jesus, and to look
forward to Christ's second coming. It's a day to reflect
on the fulfilment of God's promises and to be inspired
by Mary's example of faith and trust.
I thank you all for the love and support I have received
for my ministry in the Bowland Benefice this year.
I wish for everyone, the joy of the angels, the
eagerness of the shepherds, the perseverance of the
wise men, the obedience of Joseph and Mary, and
that the peace of the Christ child be yours this

Christmas.

An edited extract from a lecture give by John
Betjeman on the BBC Home Service on Christmas

Day 1947.

A piece called Christmas Nostalgia
………..Christmas is the one time when I feel where my
roots are: at home among my friends and family. And
the unwonted silence everywhere rubs it in. Time
seems to merge into the Eternal and I do not think of
the dead as gone for ever but as watching me in this
wintry silence when wheels no longer spin, nor
hooters hoot, nor lorries thunder down main roads,
and aeroplane engines have ceased to rip the sky with

noise.

Then on a clear night…… from the immensity of the
stars to the perfection of an insect – I cannot believe I
am surrounded by a purposeless accident. But I can
believe this most fantastic story of all: that the Maker
of the stars and of the centipedes became a baby in

Bethlehem………..

No man of intelligence can believe such a thing.
A child of Jewish parents the Creator of the universe?

Absurd.

But if it is not true why was I born? And if it is true,
nothing else is of so much importance. No date in
time is so important as Christmas Day, the birthday of
God made man. And carol singers and Salvation Army
bands and Christmas cards (yes, even Christmas cards
from ardent unbelievers, who always observe
Christmas) and cathedrals and saints and church bells
and hospitals and almshouses and towers and
steeples and the silence and present-giving of
Christmas Day all bear witness to its truth.
Beyond my reason, beyond my emotions, beyond my
intellect I know that this peculiar story is true………
Last week I was in the most beautiful building in
Britain – King’s College Chapel, Cambridge……it is so
vast, so superbly proportioned, so mysterious that no
one can enter it without gasping.
All the schoolchildren of Cambridge had filed into a
carol service and there they were in the candlelight of
the dark oak stalls. We stood waiting for the choir to
come in and as we stood there, the first verse of the
opening carol was sung beyond us, behind the screen,
away in the mighty splendour of the nave.
A treble solo fluted up to the distant vaulting Once in
Royal David City. It was clear, pure, distinct.
And as I heard it I knew once more – knew despite
myself – that the story was the Truth.
And knowing it I knew that, because of the birth of
Christ, the world could not touch me and that
between me and the world hung the figure of God

become man, crucified.