This year, it is 800 years since St Francis of Assisi set up a live Nativity scene in a cave in the Italian village of Greccio. There were live animals and a hay-filled manger to help people bring to mind the events described in the Gospels.
Stir up your power, O God,
and with your great might
come to our aid,
so that where our sins impede us,
the help of your grace may swiftly deliver us,
through Jesus Christ, our Saviour,
who is alive with you,
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever.
Amen.
Are we still allowing worship to shape our belief and life, or have we shifted into a mode in which the dynamic goes essentially in the opposite direction: our beliefs (and lifestyles) shape our worship?
God of hope,
give us grace to cast away the works of darkness,
and to put on the armour of light,
now in the time of this mortal life,
in the which your Son Jesus Christ came to us in great humility;
so that on the last day when he shall come again in his glorious majesty
to judge the living and the dead,
we may rise to the life immortal,
through him who lives and reigns with you
and the Holy Spirit now and for ever.
Amen.
Sovereign God,
it is your will to gather up all things
in your beloved one,
reigning in the universe
in the power that is love,
mercifully grant
that the whole of creation,
freed from slavery,
may serve and praise you
through Jesus Christ
who is alive with you,
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever.
Amen.
Lay Roman Catholics can now officially, publicly baptise in their churches. Women are acting in persona Christi as they minister this Sacrament.
God of inspiration,
you caused all holy scriptures to be written for our instruction,
grant us so to hear them, read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest them,
that by steadfastness and by the encouragement of your holy Word,
we may embrace and ever hold fast to the blessed hope of everlasting life,
which you have given us in our Saviour Jesus Christ,
who is alive with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God now and for ever.
Amen.
