Leigh Hatts – Page 19 – Advent to Easter

Holy Family: 7th Day of Christmas

As the 7th Day of Christmas is a Sunday so the Holy Family takes precedence over St Sylvester’s Day which falls on New Year’s Eve. On the Sunday of Christmas week we think of Mary, Joseph and Baby Jesus still in the Bethlehem stable. We can also recall them as Jesus grows up in the […]

Leigh Hatts 7 years agoOctober 29, 2023

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Translation of St James the Great: 6th Day of Christmas

Today we remember St James the Great who was one of the apostles and therefore someone who knew Jesus during his ministry. The Translation refers to the arrival in about 814 of his body in Santiago de Compostela, northern Spain, where today many go on walking pilgrimage from France, Portugal and even England. Many winter […]

Leigh Hatts 7 years agoOctober 29, 2023

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St Thomas Becket: 5th Day of Christmas

On this day in 1170 Archbishop Thomas Becket was murdered in Canterbury Cathedral. The attack came just as Vespers was starting so today during 3.15pm evensong at Canterbury Cathedral there is a procession to the Martyrdom site. His shrine inspired the great pilgrimage in England which has been compared with the camino of St James […]

Leigh Hatts 7 years agoOctober 29, 2023

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Holy Innocents: 4th Day of Christmas

Today we look ahead to the Three Kings arriving on Twelfth Night at the end of the Twelve Days of Christmas. We remember the innocent male babies put to death on orders of King Herod who was trying to kill the Christ Child. The Three Kings, or Wise Men, had visited Herod on their way […]

Leigh Hatts 7 years agoOctober 29, 2023

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St John’s Day: 3rd Day of Christmas

Today we remember St John who was with Jesus at crucial moments in his adult life and ministry such as the Transfiguration and the arrest in the Garden of Gethsemane. John was the first to find that Jesus had risen from the dead. He is believed to have written one of the Gospels and so […]

Leigh Hatts 7 years agoOctober 29, 2023

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Boxing Day: Still Christmas

Today is Boxing Day and St Stephen’s Day. This morning there will be major church services in St Stephen’s Church Gloucester Road in London, St Stephen’s Bournemouth, St Stephen’s-on-the-Cliffs Blackpool, Cathedral Church of St Stephen Vienna and many other places. For churches dedicated to Stephen today is their patronal festival. Boxing Day, the second day […]

Leigh Hatts 7 years agoOctober 29, 2023

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Christmas Day: St Mary of the Crib

Today is Christmas Day when famous churches suddenly receive media coverage. St Peter’s Rome and Church of the Nativity Bethlehem will probably bee seen in news bulletins. In Rome there is another is another focus today. The Basilica of Santa Maria Maggiore, once called St Mary of the Crib, holds what is claimed to be […]

Leigh Hatts 7 years agoOctober 29, 2023

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Christmas Eve but not Christmas yet

It’s Christmas Eve but not Christmas yet. Today is the 4th Sunday of Advent. The fourth candle on the wreath represents the Virgin Mary. We first keep today as Sunday because the Church always remembers Christ’s resurrection on the first day of the week. What happened at Easter is even more important than Christmas. We […]

Leigh Hatts 7 years agoOctober 29, 2023

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O Emmanuel

O Emmanuel, our king and our lawgiver, the hope of the nations and their Saviour: Come and save us, O Lord our God. Today’s O Antiphon, the last of the series, is heard before the Gospel at Mass and bookending the Magnificat during Evening Prayer.

Leigh Hatts 7 years agoOctober 29, 2023

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O Rex Gentium

O King of the nations, and their desire, the cornerstone making both one: Come and save the human race, which you fashioned from clay. Today’s O Antiphon is heard before the Gospel at Mass and bookending the Magnificat during Evening Prayer.

Leigh Hatts 7 years agoOctober 29, 2023