06 December 2022

Praying in Advent with Lichfield Cathedral
and USPG: Tuesday 6 December 2022

Saint Nicholas in a stained-glass window in Saint Mary’s Cathedral, Limerick (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Patrick Comerford

We are in the second week of Advent, and the Calendar of the Church of England in Common Worship today remembers Saint Nicholas, Bishop of Myra, ca 326, with a Lesser Festival.

Saint Nicholas was a fourth-century Bishop of Myra in Asia Minor, in what is now southern Turkey. His reputation as a worker of wonders was enhanced by a ninth-century author of his hagiography and he is now best known through these stories. Many of them concern his love and care for children, how he fed the hungry, healed the sick and cared for the oppressed. He saved three girls from a life of prostitution by providing them with dowries and so developed the tradition of bearing gifts to children on his feast day, a practice appropriated for the Christmas celebrations. Nicholas is also one of the patron saints of Russia.

Before today gets busy, I am taking some time this morning for reading, prayer and reflection.

During Advent, I am reflecting in these ways:

1, The reading suggested in the Advent and Christmas Devotional Calendar produced by Lichfield Cathedral this year;

2, praying with the Lichfield Cathedral Devotional Calendar;

3, a prayer from the USPG prayer diary, ‘Pray with the World Church.’

An icon of Saint Nicholas in a church in Crete (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Mark 10: 13-16 (NRSVA):

13 People were bringing little children to him in order that he might touch them; and the disciples spoke sternly to them. 14 But when Jesus saw this, he was indignant and said to them, ‘Let the little children come to me; do not stop them; for it is to such as these that the kingdom of God belongs. 15 Truly I tell you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God as a little child will never enter it.’ 16 And he took them up in his arms, laid his hands on them, and blessed them.

A shrine of Saint Nicholas in Saint Nicholas Church, Valencia (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

The Lichfield Cathedral Devotional Calendar:

Pray for the world’s children, especially those living in poverty, or with disease or disability or who encounter abuse or manipulation.

Collect:

Almighty Father, lover of souls,
who chose your servant Nicholas
to be a bishop in the Church,
that he might give freely out of the treasures of your grace:
make us mindful of the needs of others
and, as we have received, so teach us also to give;
through Jesus Christ your Son our Lord,
who is alive and reigns with you,
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever.

Post Communion:

God, shepherd of your people,
whose servant Nicholas revealed the loving service of Christ
in his ministry as a pastor of your people:
by this eucharist in which we share
awaken within us the love of Christ
and keep us faithful to our Christian calling;
through him who laid down his life for us,
but is alive and reigns with you, now and for ever.

USPG Prayer Diary:

The theme in the USPG Prayer Diary this week is ‘Human Rights in the Philippines.’ This theme was introduced on Sunday with an excerpt from the Iglesia Filipina Independiente (Philippine Independent Church) human rights report by USPG.

The USPG Prayer Diary invites us to pray today in these words:

Let us pray for those who live with loss and trauma. May their grief be met with compassion and understanding and their injuries with help and healing.

Yesterday’s reflection

Continued tomorrow


A sermon on Saint Nicholas Day 2020

Scripture quotations are from the New Revised Standard Version Bible: Anglicised Edition copyright © 1989, 1995, National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide. http://nrsvbibles.org

No comments: