Patrick Comerford
Today is the Twelfth Day of Christmas (5 January 2024), and we have spent most of the past week in virtual isolation. I never got to church on Sunday, we did not go out to ring in the New Year, I missed dinner with friends on Wednesday evening, and we have been laid down with Covid symptoms.
Last night, I tested negative for Covid, but it has been a long week, a very long week. Before today begins, I am taking some time for reading, reflection and prayer.
My reflections each morning during the ‘12 Days of Christmas’ are following this pattern:
1, A reflection on a verse from the popular Christmas song ‘The Twelve Days of Christmas’;
2, the Gospel reading of the day;
3, a prayer from the USPG prayer diary.
Today is the Twelfth Day of Christmas (5 January), and tomorrow is the Feast of the Epiphany. But, in liturgical terms, Christmas is a 40-day season that continues until Candlemas or the Feast of the Presentation (2 February).
The twelfth verse of the traditional song, The Twelve Days of Christmas, is:
On the twelfth day of Christmas, my true love gave to me …
12 drummers drumming,
11 pipers piping,
10 lords a leaping,
nine ladies dancing,
eight maids-a-milking,
seven swans-a-swimming,
six geese-a-laying,
five golden rings,
four colly birds,
three French hens,
two turtle doves
and a partridge in a pear tree.
The Christian interpretation of this song often sees the twelve drummers drumming as figurative representations of the twelve points of the Apostles’ Creed:
I believe in God, the Father almighty,
creator of heaven and earth.
I believe in Jesus Christ, God’s only Son, our Lord,
who was conceived by the Holy Spirit,
born of the Virgin Mary,
suffered under Pontius Pilate,
was crucified, died and was buried;
he descended to the dead.
On the third day he rose again;
he ascended into heaven,
he is seated at the right hand of the Father,
and he will come again to judge the living and the dead.
I believe in the Holy Spirit,
the holy catholic Church,
the communion of saints,
the forgiveness of sins,
the resurrection of the body,
and the life everlasting. Amen.
The Twelfth Night parties in the middle ages could be quite rowdy. It was the Feast of Fools in which the order of the world was turned upside down, with fools reigning as kings and people taking on roles that were contrary to their true character. Shakespeare used this night as the setting for his play, Twelfth Night, in which he gives us a picture of such a topsy-turvy world as Viola masquerades as a man, people fall in love across class lines, and the lowly indulge in ridiculous delusions of grandeur.
It would be foolhardy to deny the Christian significance of all this. By the time the Wise Men arrive in Bethlehem, the Holy Family is living in neither a stable nor in an inn, but in a house. They find the King they have been searching for, but he is not living in a palace. The mediaeval Feast of Fools reminds us that Christmas celebrates nothing less than a world turned upside down in which God becomes human in order that humanity might become divine.
The Twelfth Day of Christmas is 5 January, and our celebrations of Christmas traditionally end tonight, on the Twelfth Night, which is then followed by the Feast of the Epiphany on 6 January. The Twelve Days of Christmas are a festive period linking together these two Great Feasts of the Nativity and Theophany, so that one celebration leads into another.
Nowadays, the Twelfth Day is the last day for decorations to be taken down. Some folklore holds that it is bad luck to take decorations down after this date. But in Elizabethan England, the decorations were left up until Candelmas, and this remains the tradition in Germany and many other European countries.
John 1: 43-51 (NRSVA):
43 The next day Jesus decided to go to Galilee. He found Philip and said to him, ‘Follow me.’ 44 Now Philip was from Bethsaida, the city of Andrew and Peter. 45 Philip found Nathanael and said to him, ‘We have found him about whom Moses in the law and also the prophets wrote, Jesus son of Joseph from Nazareth.’ 46 Nathanael said to him, ‘Can anything good come out of Nazareth?’ Philip said to him, ‘Come and see.’ 47 When Jesus saw Nathanael coming towards him, he said of him, ‘Here is truly an Israelite in whom there is no deceit!’ 48 Nathanael asked him, ‘Where did you come to know me?’ Jesus answered, ‘I saw you under the fig tree before Philip called you.’ 49 Nathanael replied, ‘Rabbi, you are the Son of God! You are the King of Israel!’ 50 Jesus answered, ‘Do you believe because I told you that I saw you under the fig tree? You will see greater things than these.’ 51 And he said to him, ‘Very truly, I tell you, you will see heaven opened and the angels of God ascending and descending upon the Son of Man.’
Today’s Prayers (Friday 5 January 2024):
The theme this week in ‘Pray With the World Church,’ the Prayer Diary of the Anglican mission agency USPG (United Society Partners in the Gospel), is ‘Looking to 2024 – Freedom in Christ.’ This theme was introduced on Sunday by the Revd Duncan Dormor, USPG General Secretary.
The USPG Prayer Diary today (5 January 2024) invites us to pray in these words:
We pray for the work of USPG and its partner churches throughout this new year. May its vision – that the churches of the Anglican Communion experience a deeper fellowship together in Christ and be sources of transformation within their communities and beyond – be at the heart of all its work.
The Collect:
Almighty God,
who wonderfully created us in your own image
and yet more wonderfully restored us
through your Son Jesus Christ:
grant that, as he came to share in our humanity,
so we may share the life of his divinity;
who is alive and reigns with you,
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever.
The Post-Communion Prayer:
Heavenly Father,
whose blessed Son shared at Nazareth the life of an earthly home:
help your Church to live as one family,
united in love and obedience,
and bring us all at last to our home in heaven;
through Jesus Christ our Lord.
Additional Collect:
God in Trinity,
eternal unity of perfect love:
gather the nations to be one family,
and draw us into your holy life
through the birth of Emmanuel,
our Lord Jesus Christ.
Collect on the Eve of Epiphany:
O God,
who by the leading of a star
manifested your only Son to the peoples of the earth:
mercifully grant that we,
who know you now by faith,
may at last behold your glory face to face;
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.
Yesterday’s Reflection
Continued Tomorrow
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
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