Service Sheet for Christmas Day 2025

21/12/2025

Service Sheet for Christmas Day 2025

Celebrant: Fr Benjamin Drury

Welcome to our Liturgy of Holy Communion (Sung Mass)

Processional: 24 (Yorkshire) Christians awake! salute the happy morn

Responsorial Psalm: Ps. 98 (535 in the New English Hymnal)

Gradual: 25 (God Rest You Merry) God rest you merry, gentlemen

Offertory: 30 (Adeste Fideles) O come, all ye faithful

Communion: 31 (O Jesulein Suss) O Little One sweet, O Little One mild

Recessional: 32 (Forest Green) O little town of Bethlehem

All are welcome to stay for refreshments after the liturgy.

Please remember that the chaplaincy in Athens neither receives funding from the British Government nor from the Church of

England. All donations are, therefore, very gratefully received

A reading from the Book of the Prophet Isaiah (52: 7- 10)

How beautiful on the mountains,

are the feet of one who brings good news, who heralds peace, brings happiness, proclaims salvation,

and tells Zion, ‘Your God is king!’

Listen! Your watchmen raise their voices, they shout for joy together,

for they see the Lord face to face, as he returns to Zion.

Break into shouts of joy together, you ruins of Jerusalem;

for the Lord is consoling his people, redeeming Jerusalem.

The Lord bares his holy arm in the sight of all the nations,

and all the ends of the earth shall see the salvation of our God.

The Word of the Lord: Thanks be to God

Responsorial Psalm: Psalm 98: All the ends of the earth have seen the salvation of our God. (text at 535 in the New English Hymnal

A reading from the Letter to the Hebrews (1: 1-6)

At various times in the past and in various different ways, God

spoke to our ancestors through the prophets; but in our own time, the last days, he has spoken to us through his Son, the Son that he has appointed to inherit everything and through whom he made

everything there is. He is the radiant light of God’s glory and the perfect copy of his nature, sustaining the universe by his powerful

command; and now that he has destroyed the defilement of sin, he has gone to take his place in heaven at the right hand of divine Maj- esty. So he is now as far above the angels as the title which he has

inherited is higher than their own name.

God has never said to any angel: You are my Son, today I have

become your father; or: I will be a father to him and he a son to me. Again, when he brings the First-Born into the world, he says: Let all the angels of God worship him.

The Word of the Lord: Thanks be to God

Gospel acclamation: Alleluia, alleluia! A hallowed day has dawned upon us. Come, you nations, worship the Lord,

for today a great light has shone down upon the earth. Alleluia!

The Lord be with you. And also with you.

+ A Reading from the Holy Gospel according to John (1: 1-18)

Glory to you, O Lord.

In the beginning was the Word: and the Word was with God and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning.

Through him all things came to be, not one thing had its being but through him. All that came to be had life in him and that life was

the light of men, a light that shines in the dark, a light that dark- ness could not overpower.

A man came, sent by God. His name was John. He came as a wit- ness, as a witness to speak for the light, so that everyone might

believe through him. He was not the light, only a witness to speak for the light.

The Word was the true light that enlightens all men; and he was coming into the world. He was in the world that had its being

through him, and the world did not know him. He came to his own domain and his own people did not accept him. But to all who did accept him he gave power to become children of God, to all who

believe in the name of him who was born not out of human stock or urge of the flesh or will of man but of God himself. The Word was made flesh, he lived among us, and we saw his glory, the glory that is his as the only Son of the Father, full of grace and truth.

John appears as his witness. He proclaims: ‘This is the one of whom I said: He who comes after me ranks before me because he existed before me.’

Indeed, from his fullness we have, all of us, received – yes, grace in return for grace, since, though the Law was given through Moses, grace and truth have come through Jesus Christ. No one has ever

seen God; it is the only Son, who is nearest to the Father’s heart, who has made him known.

The Gospel of the Lord: Praise to you, O Christ

The setting of the Nicene Creed is on page 562 in the New English Hymnal.

Almighty God, who hast given us thy only-begotten Son to take our nature upon him, and as at this time to be born of a pure

Virgin: Grant that we being regenerate, and made thy children by adoption and grace, may daily be renewed by thy Holy Spirit; through the same our Lord Jesus Christ, who liveth and reigneth with thee and the same Spirit, ever one God, world without end. Amen. (BCP Collect; The Nativity of Our Lord)

He shall send them a Saviour, and a great one, and He shall deliver them. (Isaiah 18: 20)

Church Open: Tuesday-Saturday, 10 a.m.-2 p.m.

Services: Unless noted, liturgies are followed by refreshments

Friday 26th December: 10 a.m.; Low Mass (St. Stephen)

Sunday 28th December: 10 a.m.; Sung Mass (Holy Family) Wednesday 31st December: 10 a.m.; Low Mass

The next community connect coffee morning shall be held on 8th January (Apollonos 6) 10:30 a.m. – 12:30 p.m. Thanks to those who have supported these during the past year.

Study group & pilgrimage walking group: details from Fr. Benjamin

Anyone who would like to lead the intercessory prayers, serve dur- ing Mass, serve as an usher (sidesperson), assist with refreshments &c. should speak to Father Benjamin, or to Oliver Knight.

Donate electronically by scanning the QR code

the Church does not receive any funding from the