Christmas Eve

I love Midnight Mass of Christmas Eve. I especially love it in our little church - and I love it all the more since we stopped having any of the usual lights at all, with the darkness alleviated by candles in all sorts of places and small electric bulbs in the windows among the greenery. So that's what this photo shows - the altar, flanked by the strange, ancient,  home-made wooden candle-stands, topped by the candles in the East Window where the two angels have taken up residence for the season.

It shouldn't work, really, but it does. The crib is under the altar these days, and that works too. There was a good cloud of holy smoke, and good singing. And one of the things that meant a lot to me was that as an introit we sang Advent Song again, four years after it was written by John McIntosh (aka Mr PB) to my words. We first sang it at an Advent Evensong, but in fact the words made perfect sense at 11.30pm on Christmas Eve:

Hold me waiting as you wait to be born.