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Source: (consider it)
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Thread: A Christmas Reading (for a carol service)
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Mudfrog
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# 8116
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Posted
In our non-liturgical 'make it up as you go along; you liturgical types don't know how easy you have it' Carol service ![[Biased]](wink.gif) I am having three readings from Luke's nativity narrative - annunciation, birth, shepherds - and that's it as far as Scripture is concerned.
What I'd like is a couple of secular/semi-secular Christmassy readings. Not the Betjemen 'lives today in bread and wine' one (old hat) but something along those lines.
Any ideas/suggestions?
Nothing too 'Radio 3' please.
Thanks
(Thread title edited to avoid confusion with another, very similarly titled, thread)
[ 10. December 2014, 18:36: Message edited by: Firenze ]
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"The point of having an open mind, like having an open mouth, is to close it on something solid."
G.K. Chesterton
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Baptist Trainfan
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# 15128
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Posted
Here's one which might appeal, by Steve Turner. You may well know it.
P.S. I love Radio 3 - but I know what you mean, not too high-falutin'.
[ 10. December 2014, 17:08: Message edited by: Baptist Trainfan ]
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Adeodatus
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# 4992
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Posted
You could do a lot worse than one of U.A.Fanthorpe's Christmas poems. There are many more than those in the link, but BC:AD is my favourite. There's something about the last few lines that always tingles my spine.
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"What is broken, repair with gold."
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Magersfontein Lugg
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# 18240
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Posted
Now by Fanthorpe is very nice I think.
It can be read by two voices - reading the lines alternately, and it has to be read slowly.
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doubtingthomas
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# 14498
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Posted
Would C.S. Lewis's Nativity fit the bill?
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'We are star-stuff. We are the Universe made manifest, trying to figure itself out'
Delenn (Babylon 5)
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Fr Weber
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# 13472
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Posted
Robert Southwell's poem here.
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"The Eucharist is not a play, and you're not Jesus."
--Sr Theresa Koernke, IHM
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Galloping Granny
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# 13814
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Posted
I cannot do better than to offer Joy Cowley's Nativity on this page at the end of David's introduction. It needs a good reader!
GG
Not really secular though, just one of Joy's 'psalms' well known and loved in New Zealand.
[ 13. December 2014, 07:50: Message edited by: Galloping Granny ]
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The Kingdom of Heaven is spread upon the earth, and men do not see it. Gospel of Thomas, 113
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StevHep
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# 17198
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Posted
If you are looking for prose as well as poetry you might find something in Arnold Bennett's Feast of St Friend: A Christmas Book to take a random example-
quote:
And now I can hear the superior sceptic disdainfully questioning: "Yes, but what about the orgy of Christmas? What about all the eating and drinking?" To which I can only answer that faith causes effervescence, expansion, joy, and that joy has always, for excellent reasons, been connected with feasting. The very words 'feast' and 'festival' are etymologically inseparable. The meal is the most regular and the least dispensable of daily events; it happens also to be an event which is in itself almost invariably a source of pleasure, or, at worst, of satisfaction: and it will continue to have this precious quality so long as our souls are encased in bodies. What could be more natural, therefore, than that it should be employed, with due enlargement and ornamentation, as the kernel of the festival? What more logical than that the meal should be elevated into a feast?
Chapter 5
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My Blog Catholic Scot
http://catholicscot.blogspot.co.uk/
@stevhep on Twitter
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Kelly Alves
Bunny with an axe
# 2522
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Posted
If you want to make them think about it for a week:
Auggie Wren's Christmas Story.
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I cannot expect people to believe “
Jesus loves me, this I know” of they don’t believe “Kelly loves me, this I know.”
Kelly Alves, somewhere around 2003.
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Firenze
Ordinary decent pagan
# 619
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Posted
Mudfrog, I know you specifically identify your request as 'non-liturgical' but you never know, the various dealers in church services in Ecclesiantics might have some ideas. Worth a whirl.
Firenze
Heaven Host
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georgiaboy
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# 11294
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Posted
It may be to traditional for your contemplated use, but Chesterton's 'House of Christmas' is pretty potent stuff.
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You can't retire from a calling.
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ElaineC
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# 12244
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Posted
I will be reading T. S. Eliot's Journey of the Magi at our Carol Service.
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Music is the only language in which you cannot say a mean or sarcastic thing. John Erskine
Posts: 464 | From: Orpington, Kent, UK | Registered: Jan 2007
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Mudfrog
Shipmate
# 8116
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Posted
You are all very kind - lots of great suggestions. So much material out there. Many, many thanks
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"The point of having an open mind, like having an open mouth, is to close it on something solid."
G.K. Chesterton
Posts: 8237 | From: North Yorkshire, UK | Registered: Jul 2004
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venbede
Shipmate
# 16669
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by ElaineC:
I will be reading T. S. Eliot's Journey of the Magi at our Carol Service.
Well, good on you. But that is the ultimate Radio 3 carol service reading.
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Man was made for joy and woe;
And when this we rightly know,
Thro' the world we safely go.
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L'organist
Shipmate
# 17338
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Posted
Maybe next year you might like to look out Christmas in the Market Place.
This is a delightful 3 act play by Henry Gheon (I think that's the spelling) and needs only a small cast. I have seen it done by having the actors do their bit then singing carols at appropriate moments.
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Rara temporum felicitate ubi sentire quae velis et quae sentias dicere licet
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Ahleal V
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# 8404
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Posted
Celebrating the Seasons by Robert Atwell (Canterbury Press, 1999) generally has one patristic/medieval, and one contemporary reading for each day of the season. Highly commended!
x
AV
Posts: 499 | From: English Spires | Registered: Aug 2004
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