sermon news

Sermon for the Third Sunday of Advent – 13th December 2020: Isaiah 61, 1-4,8-11; John 1, 6-8, 19-28

Fr Leonard Doolan – St Pauls Athens

 

‘What sayest thou of thyself?’ One of the great Anglican church music composers of the late 16th century is Orlando Gibbons. His professional life took him via a circuitous route to Westminster Abbey where he was one of the organists. He died young after taking ill on a journey to Canterbury, at the age of 45, and he is buried in Canterbury Cathedral where there is a monument to him.

Gibbons was a fairly prolific composer of both secular madrigals, and of church music. One of the anthems he composed is called ‘This is the Record of John’ and the text is that of the conversation between John the baptizer and the priests and levites in today’s gospel reading.

‘What sayest thou of thyself?’ is one of the questions set to music – rather more poetically phrased in the 16th century than our version this morning, ‘Who are you?’

We started to think about John the baptizer last week as the gospel directs us to John baptizing Jesus in the river Jordan and John proclaiming, as he does in Matthew, Mark and Luke, that he has come to make the path straight.

 

READ MORE

Xmas Tree 21 Blog

Christmas Tree Appeal!

We thank you all from far and near

For helping bring some Christmas cheer

Our Christmas tree as you can see

Now has some presents on the tree

But there are still so many branches

That do not have a gift to bear

So won’t you send a little something

To fill the tree and show you care.

But don’t forget to let us know

Click on the link and feel the glow

That comes with giving this time of year

Full of love and hope and festive cheer.

http://anglicanchurchathens.gr/support-st-pauls/donations/

www.paypal.me/StPaulsathens

*Please mark your donation “Christmas Tree”.

Advent Candle 1

Zoom service for the third Sunday in Advent – 13th December 2020

Welcome to our Sunday worship brought to our homes by Zoom.  After the worship we can have a short chat together. The hymns and other shared texts you might know

by heart, or you can print out this service, or you may have a hymn book at home, or you may be happy to listen in silence. Have a candle ready to light when we get to that part of the worship.

 

The Sunday worship login address remains the same throughout these weeks – see website. Deacon Christine offers a Saturday morning worship option on Facebook. The website will inform you of any regulation changes for December.  From 1st December until 23rd December there will be a service of Night Prayer (Compline) EVERY night at 21.00. Have a candle ready to light in your home. See website for login.

 

The preacher this morning is Fr. Leonard

 

Priest:  Grace, mercy and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ be with you.

All:        and also with you.

 

1 On Jordan’s bank the Baptist’s cry
announces that the Lord is nigh.
Awake and harken, for he brings
glad tidings of the King of kings!

 

2 Then cleansed be every life from sin:
make straight the way for God within,
and let us all our hearts prepare
for Christ to come and enter there.

 

3 We hail you as our Savior, Lord,
our refuge and our great reward.
Without your grace we waste away
like flowers that wither and decay.

 

4 Stretch forth your hand, our health restore,
and make us rise to fall no more.
O let your face upon us shine
and fill the world with love divine.

 

 

5 All praise to you, eternal Son,
whose advent has our freedom won,
whom with the Father we adore,
and Holy Spirit, evermore. 

READ MORE

sermon news

Sermon for Advent Sunday – 29th November 2020: : Isaiah 64, 1-9; Mark 13, 24-37.

Fr Leonard Doolan – St Paul’s Athens

 

I have to begin with an apology – an apology to all those who were not brought up in the UK with the children’s TV programme called Blue Peter. Please allow for a few moments of nostalgia. Every year at this time of year the Blue Peter team would make their own version of an Advent Crown. John Nokes, Peter Purves and Valerie Singleton are among the names I recall from my childhood. This is the 1960s.

Two wire coat hangers, silver tinsel, four candles (no I didn’t say fork handles!) and four Christmas baubles, transformed into their Advent wreath. This activity always forewarned us that Christmas was approaching, and we should be getting ready.

Advent candles on the television, Advent candles in church. The season of Advent is now here. A new church year begins today and a new set of Sunday readings on our three year cycle of readings begins today. As we might say, our countdown to Christmas begins today. Advent appears to be a time of beginnings.

Strangely enough in the old days, for example when I was much younger, the preachers for these four Sundays of Advent used to preach not about four themes of beginnings, but four themes on endings. The themes were what we call eschatological – the Four Last Things – Death, Judgement, Heaven, and Hell. I suppose these themes would indeed sharpen the expectations of the believers. It is a long way from the coat hangers and tinsel of the Blue Peter Advent Crown.

READ MORE

Advent Candle 1

Zoom Worship for the 2nd Sunday of Advent -6 December 2020

Welcome to our Sunday worship brought to our homes by Zoom.  After the worship we can have a short chat together. The hymns and other shared texts you might know

by heart, or you can print out this service, or you may have a hymn book at home, or you may be happy to listen in silence.

 

The Sunday worship login address remains the same throughout these weeks – see website. Deacon Christine offers a Saturday morning worship option on Facebook. The website will inform you of any regulation changes for December.  From 1st December until 23rd December there will be a service of Night Prayer (Compline) EVERY night at 21.00. Have a candle ready to light in your home. See website for login.

 

The preacher this morning is Fr. Leonard

 

Priest:  Grace, mercy and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ be with you.

All:        and also with you.

 

1 Hark, the glad sound! The Saviour comes,
the Saviour promised long!
Let ev’ry heart prepare a throne,
and ev’ry voice a song.

 

2 He comes the pris’ners to release,
in Satan’s bondage held;
the gates of brass before Him burst,
the iron fetters yield.

 

3 He comes the broken heart to bind,
the bleeding soul to cure,
and with the treasures of His grace,
t’enrich the humbled poor.

 

4 Our glad Hosannas, Prince of Peace,
Thy welcome shall proclaim;
and heav’n’s eternal arches ring,
with Thy beloved Name.

READ MORE

sermon news

Sermon for 2nd Sunday of Advent – 6th December 202: Isaiah 40, 1-11; Mark 1, 1-8

Revd. Canon Leonard Doolan – St Paul’s Athens

 

A voice says, “Cry out!” And I said, “What shall I cry?” All people are grass, their constancy is like the flower of the field. The grass withers, the flower fades, when the breath of the Lord blows upon it; surely the people are grass. The grass withers, the flower fades; but the word of our God will stand forever. (Isaiah 40, 6-8)

As a boy chorister in my local church I recall an anthem that was in the choir repertoire. It was partly based on these words from the prophet Isaiah, and composed by Samuel Wesley in 1833. Jokingly the choirboys used to call him ‘steamship Wesley’ because his initials were ‘S.S.’

After a very beautiful and serene homophonic introduction, ‘Blessed be the God and Father, of our Lord Jesus Christ’ the anthem then moved on to a beautiful soprano solo, ‘Love one another with a pure heart fervently’ followed by a slow and sombre section for the grizzly basses to sing which ended, ‘the grass withereth, and the flower thereof, falleth away.’ Then a single thundering chord from the organ, and off we went in full polyphony ‘But the word of the Lord, endureth for ever’ sung a breakneck speed for which each choir member, soprano, altos, tenors and basses each needed a good pair of lungs and their own set of teeth, before the whole piece ended with the great Hebrew ‘so be it’, Amen, Amen.

READ MORE

Advent Candle 1

Zoom Worship for Advent Sunday – 29th November 2020

Welcome to our Sunday worship brought to our homes by Zoom.  After the worship we can have a short chat together. The hymns and other shared texts you might know

 by heart, or you can print out this service, or you may have a hymn book at home, or you may be happy to listen in silence.

 

The Sunday worship login address remains the same throughout these weeks – see website. Deacon Christine offers a Saturday morning worship option on Facebook. The website will inform you of any regulation changes for December.  Advent Begins on 29th November. From 1st December until 23rd December there will be a service of Night Prayer (Compline) EVERY night at 21.00. Have a candle ready to light in your home. See website for login.

 The preacher this morning is Fr. Leonard

Priest:  Grace, mercy and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ be with you.

All:        and also with you.

READ MORE