"For these magi were great philosophers and astronomers; and therefore God sent a miraculous star to invite and lead them to a new and more glorious light, the lights of grace and glory." Jeremy Taylor

"The renovation of the chapel will see a collection of paintings depicting Christ, St Paul and 11 of the 12 Apostles being restored to their former glory." A lovely example of the use of imagery in an 18thC CofE place of worship. www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

The Middle Church, prepared for The Epiphany. "Last we consider the time of their coming, the season of the year. It was no summer progress. A cold coming they had of it at this time of the year ..."

"As it was an unsearchable wisdom, so it was an unmeasurable grace of Providence and dispensation which God did exhibit to those wise men, to them, as to all men, disposing the ministries of his grace sweetly ..." Jeremy Taylor

This is very good indeed from Mark Clavier, on appreciating the wisdom of the Old High tradition and how it challenges contemporary Anglicanism. open.substack.com/pub/markclav...

A much beloved provision in the CofI BCP 1926: in the cold, dark days of the early New Year, we continue to dwell in the light of the Incarnate Word.

For the feast of the Circumcision of Christ and New Year's Day. As Bach would write, S.D.G. youtu.be/BlCeTOP4Pxk?...

‘January’ (Shell Guide, Flowers of the Countryside, 1955) Artists: Edith and Rowland Hilder

"For as he was included in the verge of Abraham's posterity, and had put on the common outside of his nation, his parents had intimation enough to pass upon him the sacrament of the national covenant, and it became an act of excellent obedience." Jeremy Taylor

The Year of Our Lord 2026. Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Ghost : as it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, world without end. Amen.

At Evensong on this New Year's Eve, in the last hours of 2025 and with 2026 before us, the Second Collect at Evening Prayer says all that needs to be said.

Jeremy Taylor in 'Holy Dying': "If we would have our life lengthened, let us begin betimes to live in the accounts of reason and sober counsels, of religion and the Spirit, and then we shall have no reason to complain that our abode on earth is so short ... 1/2

'Oh,' said Merowdis, 'but don't you see? The child must come in midwinter. A midwinter child in the arms of a Virgin. A child to bring light into the darkness.' A novelist reminding us why the carols rightly sing of the Nativity in midwinter, amid the winter's snow.

Concluding Matins and Evensong with The Grace during these days of Christmastide has a particular resonance, beautifully summarising the redeeming love of the Holy Trinity in the Incarnation.

29th December, The Day of Thanksgiving for Article 37. Also known as Royal Supremacy Day. It does, of course, take precedence over any other commemoration which may happen to fall on this day.

Shared on the Facebook page of Den norske kirke 🇳🇴 on Christmas Day. Ringebu Stave Church, built in the 13th century.

"The sword being thus made sharp by Herod's commission, killed fourteen thousand pretty babes, as the Greeks in their calendar, and the Abyssines of Ethiopia do commemorate in their offices of liturgy." Jeremy Taylor invoking Orthodox and Ethiopian commemoration of the Innocents.

In his hymn for Saint John's Day, Jeremy Taylor referred to the saint as "The friend of our eternal King, Who in his bosome lay". In 'The Great Exemplar', Taylor's references to Saint John emphasise "the beloved disciple, leaning in Jesus' breast". The quiet significance 1/2

At Evensong on Saint Stephen's Day, Ps.119:17-32: "Princes also did sit and speak against me : but thy servant is occupied in thy statutes. For thy testimonies are my delight : and my counsellors". The witness of Stephen is grounded in the Scriptures and prayers of Israel.

Remembering the officers and men of the Knyphausen, Lossberg, and Rall regiments, who fought in the service of the Crown at Trenton, Province of New Jersey, 26th December 1776. Their commander, Colonel Johann Rall, and Major Friedrich von Dechow, were both mortally wounded.

John Donne, in Sermon CXLVI, preached in 1627, on the example of Saint Stephen. Donne here echoes the Prayer Book Ordinal which, in the Making of Deacons, refers to the diaconate as "this inferior office". This does not undermine the office, for it is undertaken by Our Lord:

Amongst the photos shared by the BBC of Christmas worship, worshippers at Central Brooks Memorial Church, Karachi, Church of Pakistan. A reminder of the brave witness of Christians in Pakistan: may their example encourage us in a faithful proclamation of the Incarnation.

What a marvellous speech from The King, an incredibly powerful, explicit statement of the Christian Faith: the Shepherds going to "Jesus, the Saviour of the World", the Wise Men, worshipping Christ; "the Holy Family"; "the greatest journey of all", the Incarnation. GSTK

"... there can be no greater grace showed towards man than that God should vouchsafe to unite to man's nature the person of His only begotten Son." Richard Hooker (LEP V.54.3)

At the Midnight Eucharist, the Old Testament reading was from Isaiah 52: "Break forth; shout together for joy, you ruins of Jerusalem". Whatever is broken down or ruined in our lives, in the church, in our culture, in the world, it is healed and restored in the Christ Child.

Christmas Eve at The Middle Church, in the heart of Jeremy Taylor country. O God, who makest us glad with the yearly remembrance of the birth of thy only Son Jesus Christ ...

"by his Mother he was of the Family of King David, and called the Son of Man, his Mother being a holy person, not chosen to this great honour for her wealth or beauty, but by the good will of God, and because she was of a rare exemplar modesty and humility" Jeremy Taylor

Shared on the Facebook page of Den norske kirke 🇳🇴, a photograph of a family arriving for Christmas Day service in 1939 in Haslum Church, Bærum, west of Oslo.

Peter recently received good news that the chemotherapy has been successful. We are all incredibly thankful. Thank you to those who have prayed for Peter over past months.

Two services of Nine Lessons and Carols today. The first in our own parish, with its rich choral tradition. The second, a friend's country parish, with more of a 'West Gallery' feel. Both churches packed, both joyful, both proclaiming the grace and truth of the Incarnation.

On this Fourth Sunday of Advent, the day of the Winter solstice, the second lesson at Evensong was Revelation 22: "And there shall be no night there ... for the Lord God giveth them light".

Mary ... was found with child of the Holy Ghost. Matthew 1.18 I have written in more than an hundred places, that we receive the selfsame body of Christ that was born of the Virgin Mary. Thomas Cranmer, on the Sacrament of the Eucharist.

"the Church ... call[s] upon her members, still to celebrate the Advent of the Lord ... Still, therefore, is this season of Advent celebrated by the Church." From an Advent sermon of the 1820s, by Cornelius Roosevelt Duffie, a PECUSA clergyman.

A good article by Charles Moore in today's Telegraph, on The King representing a more authentic vision of Christianity in the public realm than aggressive alternatives. Also important, Moore emphasies how The King's approach stands in continuity with the stance of the late Queen.

Wherefore now this day we ordain thee to be the high priest of thy nation, and to be called the king's friend; (and therewithal he sent him a purple robe and a crown of gold:) ... 1 Maccabees 10.20

Jeremy Taylor in 'The Invalidity of a Late or Death-bed Repentance', Part II, Sermon VI, from the second volume of the Golden Grove sermons - "God hath convenated with us to live a holy life ... nothing but faith working by charity":

Ladybird Artists Advent Calendar Window 19 ‘December’ (1955) Artists: Edith Hilder, Rowland Hilder

Then went he and laid siege against Bethbasi; and they fought against it a long season and made engines of war. 1 Maccabees 9.64

"A Christmas sermon, therefore, must conform to the Christological truths confessed by the first four General Councils ..." laudablepractice.blogspot.com/2025/12/let-...

Jeremy Taylor in 'The Invalidity of a Late or Death-bed Repentance', Part II, Sermon VI, from the second volume of the Golden Grove sermons - quoting from a particularly controversial part of the then prohibited Prayer Book, the signing with the Cross at Baptism:

Laurits Andersen Ring, 'View of Roskilde from Sankt Jørgensbjerg' (1916), showing Roskilde Domkirke, where monarchs of 🇩🇰 are buried.

Then Judas said, God forbid that I should do this thing, and flee away from them: if our time be come, let us die manfully for our brethren, and let us not stain our honour. 1 Maccabees 9.10

Jeremy Taylor in 'The Invalidity of a Late or Death-bed Repentance', Part I, Sermon V, from the second volume of the Golden Grove sermons - a rather different, and more significant, understanding of the baptismal covenant than found in some quarters of contemporary Anglicanism:

Moreover how they had made for themselves a senate house, wherein three hundred and twenty men sat in council daily, consulting alway for the people, to the end they might be well ordered. 1 Maccabees 8.15

Jane Austen was born OTD in 1775. Alison Milbank refers to "the specifically Anglican spirit" of her novels, "a narrative theology" showing "the nature of true happiness, within a shared community". St. Nicholas, Steventon, where Jane was baptised and her father was parson.

Jeremy Taylor in 'The Invalidity of a Late or Death-bed Repentance', Part I, Sermon V, from the second volume of the Golden Grove sermons - an echo of the petition in the General Confession at Matins and Evensong, "That we may hereafter live a godly, righteous, and sober life":

Ladybird Artists Advent Calendar, window 16 ‘First Snow’ Artist: Rowland Hilder

Thou, O Lord, didst choose this house to be called by thy name, and to be a house of prayer and petition for thy people. 1 Maccabees 7.37

Ladybird Artists Advent Calendar, window 15 ‘Christmas Time’ Artist: Ronald Lampitt

On the day after the murderous attack on Jews in Sydney, the opening verses of Psalm 76 at Matins are a powerful reminder of Christianity's debt to Judaism and the need to refute contemporary expressions of the Marcionite heresy.