First Sunday after Christmas

 

Is 63:7-9; Ps 148; Heb 2:10-18; Mt 2:13-23

For he said, ‘Surely they are my people,

    children who will not deal falsely’;

and he became their saviour 

    in all their distress.

 

It was no messenger or angel

    but his presence that saved them;[b]

in his love and in his pity he redeemed them;

    he lifted them up and carried them all the days of old.

 

Isaiah 63:8-9 

A Christmas Carol

In the bleak midwinter, frosty wind made moan,

Earth stood hard as iron, water like a stone;

Snow had fallen, snow on snow, snow on snow,

In the bleak midwinter, long ago.

Our God, Heaven cannot hold Him, nor earth sustain;

Heaven and earth shall flee away when He comes to reign.

In the bleak midwinter a stable place sufficed

The Lord God Almighty, Jesus Christ.

Enough for Him, whom cherubim, worship night and day,

Breastful of milk, and a mangerful of hay;

Enough for Him, whom angels fall before,

The ox and ass and camel which adore.

Angels and archangels may have gathered there,

Cherubim and seraphim thronged the air;

But His mother only, in her maiden bliss,

Worshipped the beloved with a kiss.

What can I give Him, poor as I am?

If I were a shepherd, I would bring a lamb;

If I were a Wise Man, I would do my part;

Yet what I can I give Him: give my heart.

 

Christina Rossetti 

Copyright Credit: Christina Rossetti, “A Christmas Carol” from The Century Illustrated Monthly Magazine vol. 3 (1871-1872 Nov-Apr), ed. by J. G. Holland. New York: Scribner & Co: 1872. Public Domain.

Source: The Century Illustrated Monthly Magazine vol. 3 (Scribner & Co., 1872)

In The Bleak Midwinter - Rossetti arr. Holst
Tenebrae conducted by Nigel Short