My dear folk,
Enclosed with this letter you will find All Saints’ Christmas schedule. Let me offer a few words about what is to come in the next few weeks.
Our Festival of Nine Lessons & Carols is at four o’clock on Sunday, 23 December, sung by the Choir of Men & Boys. Here is a wonderful opportunity to center our selves in the midst of a hectic season and focus our attention on the true significance of the birth of Jesus. The readings of Holy Scripture, the choral offerings, both old and new, and Christmas carols for the congregation to sing combine in this lovely, meditative service. It is a particularly appropriate service to which you might invite friends or neighbors – and I heartily encourage you to do so.
The Prelude for Christmas Eve’s Solemn Mass begins at 7:30. The Choir of Men and Boys will sing music of the season, and we shall have the pleasure of hearing many more pieces than could be sung during a Mass. It is hard to imagine a more wonderful preparation for our worship as we gather on that Holy Night. I am sure that you will want to be here to enjoy it all!
Also enclosed with this letter is an envelope for Christmas flowers and decorations. Your generous contributions to the flower fund not only permit us to fittingly decorate the church for this glorious Feast of the Nativity, they also help provide for flowers on those Sundays when none have been given. Contributions may be made as memorials or as thanksgivings. To be included in the bulletin, names should be received in the Church Office by noon of Thursday, 20 December.
As we prepare to celebrate the coming of our Lord, I encourage you not to loose sight of the one who makes this season what it is. Christmas customs abound; many and varying traditions surround us. There is so much that is good and praiseworthy this time of year. It does seem to call out the best in each of us. Yet we surely are impoverished if we neglect the one whose coming underlies it all. It is the birth of Jesus that we celebrate; it is his coming which brings forth this annual outpouring of charity, fellowship, and good will. As our voices join in singing “O come let us adore him,” may God grant that those words be the deepest desire of each of our hearts.
Both Easter and Christmas are real encounters with the incomprehensible mystery of God’s love for us. In Easter we see it at its most clear, like staring into the noon-day sun. In Christmas it is so much more accessible to us; there is so much more that we can recognize and relate to. If Easter is like staring into the noon-day sun, Christmas is like watching the first rays of sunlight breaking over the horizon. So let us rejoice and revel in the new light of the dawn, knowing that the noonday shall follow in its time.
Yours, in his service,
Michael J. Godderz+
(Ruth Godderz)
