Thread: A Christmas Reading (for a carol service) Board: Oblivion / Ship of Fools.


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Posted by Mudfrog (# 8116) on :
 
In our non-liturgical 'make it up as you go along; you liturgical types don't know how easy you have it' Carol service 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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Posted by Baptist Trainfan (# 15128) on :
 
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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Posted by Adeodatus (# 4992) on :
 
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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Posted by Magersfontein Lugg (# 18240) on :
 
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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Posted by Roseofsharon (# 9657) on :
 
Another fan of Fanthorpe here.
My particular favourite - again for a great last sentence - is The Wicked Fairy at The Manger

[ 11. December 2014, 21:42: Message edited by: Roseofsharon ]
 

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Posted by doubtingthomas (# 14498) on :
 
Would C.S. Lewis's Nativity fit the bill?
 

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Posted by Fr Weber (# 13472) on :
 
Robert Southwell's poem here.
 

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Posted by Galloping Granny (# 13814) on :
 
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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Posted by Niminypiminy (# 15489) on :
 
The Mary of your Christmas Cards ?
 

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Posted by StevHep (# 17198) on :
 
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:

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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?

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quote:

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Originally posted by ElaineC:
I will be reading T. S. Eliot's Journey of the Magi at our Carol Service.

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