O holy night! The stars are brightly shining,
It is the night of our dear Saviour's birth.
Long lay the world in sin and error pining,
'Til He appear'd and the soul felt its worth.
A thrill of hope, the weary world rejoices,
For yonder breaks a new and glorious morn.
Fall on your knees! O hear the angel voices!
O night divine, O night when Christ was born;
O night divine, O night, O night Divine…
‘O Holy Night’ by John Sullivan Dwight, based on the French text from Placide Cappeau’s ‘Cantique de Noel’
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Image: Madonna with Child and Angels, 1674, by Giovanni Battista Salvi da Sassoferrato (1609–1685), Galleria nazionale d'arte antica di palazzo Corsini, Rome.
Photo: Livio Andronico, used under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International licence.
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In St Mary’s prayer cycle for this month, today we pray for excited children, tired parents and the anticipated joy of Christmas.
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In these unprecedented times, St Mary’s is reaching out and supporting our community in many ways, especially online. But with activities in our buildings greatly restricted, we no longer receive the previous level of financial support from collections at Services, nor from hiring out the church and hall buildings.
If you can help us financially to continue to offer Christ's love to our community in these difficult times, as those before us have done down the centuries, please consider making a donation by debit/credit card and to Gift Aid it if possible, by clicking this link to 'givealittle':
https://givealittle.co/campaigns/4360add2-de5e-456a-9958-34f5276a3887
Thank you!
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