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This page last updated 22 December 2004
Anglicans Online last updated 20 August 2000

Letters to AO

EVERY WEEK WE PUBLISH a selection of letters we receive in response to something you've read at Anglicans Online. Stop by and have a look at what other AO readers are thinking.

Alas, we cannot publish every letter we receive. And we won't publish letters that are anonymous, hateful, illiterate, or otherwise in our judgment do not benefit the readers of Anglicans Online. We usually do not publish letters written in response to other letters.

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Letters from 13 December to 19 December 2004

Like all letters to the editor everywhere, these letters are the opinions of the letter writers and not Anglicans Online. We publish letters that we think will be of interest to our readers, whether we agree with them or not. If you'd like to write a letter of your own, click here.

Customs, chronology, and Christmas

I READ WITH INTEREST the correspondence on the subject of Christmas decorations versus Advent. Further to Michel Cousins comment, we had the privilege of living in Rome during the Jubileum and celebrated Advent and Christmas there. In Italy it is still common to decorate the family tree on Christmas eve; much was then made of the arrival of the Magi at Epiphany. The decorations, however, are often not taken down until Candlemas in February.

The festive season in Italy is therefore about the same length as elsewhere but just occupies different dates. In England some people believe it is unlucky to leave the decorations up after Twelfth Night -- but then we celebrate Mother's day during Lent.

I enjoy Advent very much, and also all the glitz of the secular decorations in the dark cold English month of December. It makes it a special time of year, whatever the reason, and almost every Infant School in the country puts on a Nativity play with all the magic of the first Christmas.

So I think your editorial last week is right: meanness of spirit removes most of the joy from our world. I also think that the site is a wonderful resource. We travel a lot and can always find somewhere to worship, thanks to you!

Grace Blake
Royal Garrison Church of All Saints, Aldershot, England
Guildford, England
14 December 2004

Lamenting lessons past

IF THERE IS ONE THING that I know I am going to miss on Christmas Day at the service of Holy Communion in my little country church it will be the Collect, Epistle, and Gospel for that day, as in the [1662] Book of Common Prayer.

Despite that our congregation still worships in that tradition, clergy tend to substitute those set readings for others they see as being more suited to their sermon -- or those they believe will be more readily understood by us. After a lifetime (over 60 years) of the BCP Christmas Day I understand those set readings very well, thank you.

Furthermore is there a more majestic Collect than that for Christmas Day, a more dramatic beginning to an Epistle than that as set 'God, who at sundry times...' or a more comforting Gospel reading than the St John assurance that 'In the beginning was the Word...'

And even when all three are read badly, particularly 'In the beginning WAS the Word, and the Word WAS with God and the Word WAS God...' they still impress with their directness, drama, and poetry.

But the new clergy know so much more than we do. Out with old, in with the new -- every year. Change and decay in all around. I see!

Trevor Grant Cowell
Christ Church, Illawarra, Longford, Tasmania
Perth, Tasmania, Australia.
platcha1@optusnet.com.au
16 December 2004


Earlier letters

We launched our 'Letters to AO' section on 11 May 2003. All of our letters are in our archives.

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