Author: Leigh Hatts

Leigh Hatts is the author of 'Keeping Advent and Christmas' and 'Keeping Lent and Easter' (DLT).
Updates

Two books for Lent

Lent starts in early March. The first day of the month is Shrove Tuesday and you can read about all the traditional pre-Lent fun as well why we eat pancakes in Keeping Lent & Easter. The book guides you through the forty days of Lent to Easter. After Mothering Sunday, Lent’s halfway point at the […]

Leigh Hatts 
Updates

The 12 Days of Christmas

Boxing Day this year is Holy Family Sunday unless you are at a church dedicated to St Stephen where it is patronal festival day as usual. Monday is St John’s Day. Holy Innocents on Tuesday is when we can think (out of sequence) about Herod’s reaction to the Three Kings arriving at the climax of […]

Leigh Hatts 
Updates

Christmas Eve

At last it is nearly Christmas. At dusk tonight we can say Christmas has arrived. Mary and Joseph have arrived in Bethlehem. There will be the carols from King’s College Cambridge on Radio 4 from just after 3pm and cathedrals will have the first Evensong of Christmas. Thanks to Covid it is now possible to […]

Leigh Hatts 
Updates

Advent Prose

In many churches the ancient Advent Prose , Drop down, ye heavens, from above,/ and let the skies pour down righteousness, is sung between the first readings during Advent. The words are from Isaiah: Pour down, O heavens, from above, and let the skies rain down righteousness. Turn your fierce anger from us, O Lord, […]

Leigh Hatts 
Updates

Advent antiphons

Advent turns on the 17 December as the O Antiphons are heard daily at Mass and Evening Prayer. They are familiar to many as we hear five of them in the Advent hymn O Come, O come, Emmanuel. We are looking at last towards the birth of Christ. By tradition it is now that Mary […]

Leigh Hatts 
Updates

St Lucy’s light

St Lucy’s Day, Monday 13 December, provides another suggestion of the coming light of Christ. It is an important stepping stone in Advent for those in Scandinavia, Sicily and Venice. In Swedish homes and churches it is the tradition for girls to dress as Lucy and wear a crown of candles to recall the manner […]

Leigh Hatts 
Updates

Loreto’s Holy House

The Translation of the Holy House of Loreto on 10 December marks the arrival on this day in Italy of the front section of the house where Mary lived in Nazareth. It took several years to move the house although the iconography suggests that angels carried the little building. This was based on a misunderstanding. […]

Leigh Hatts