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This page last updated 7 January 2019  

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 We usually do not publish letters written in response to other letters. We edit letters to conform with standard AO house style for punctuation, but we do not change, for example, American spelling to conform to British orthography. On occasion we'll gently edit letters that are too verbose in their original form. Email addresses are included when the authors give permission to do so.

If you'd like to respond to a letter whose author does not list an email, you can send your response to Anglicans Online and we'll forward it to the writer.

Letters from the week of 31 December 2018 - 6 January 2019

Like all letters to the editor everywhere, these letters express the opinions of the 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.

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On the Awkward Days of Christmas...

"...but then there are those awkward days between Christmas Day and the New Year that no one quite seems to know how to handle.”

Once upon a time diligent attention to the 1662 Book of Common Prayer ensured that these "awkward days" were anything but "awkward days".

"The voice of prayer (was) never silent, nor (died) the strain of praise away" because after Christmas Day there were celebrations of Holy Communion for Saint Stephen’s Day (Dec 26); St.John the Evangelist’s Day (Dec.27);
The Innocents’ Day (Dec 28) The Circumcision of Christ (Jan 1), with, of course, the continuation of midweek Eucharist at "10.30 a.m. on Wednesday".

Nowadays after Christmas Day "the voice of prayer (falls)…silent" and under the pressures of 21st century life "the strains of praise (fade) away".

There are few, if any, parish churches—certainly in smaller Diocese—where the doors are open during the week and the Eucharist is being celebrated—and sometime—in January—not even on a Sunday.

As for Morning and Evening Prayer...?

Trevor Cowell
Christ Church, Illawarra
Perth, Tasmania, Australia
trevorcowell@bigpond.com
31 December 2018

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


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