Service sheet for Sunday 29th December 2024 – First Sunday of Christmas, The Holy ~Family

St. Paul’s Anglican Church, Athens

Diocese in Europe

Celebrant: Fr. Benjamin Drury

Welcome to our Liturgy of Holy Communion (Sung Mass)

Entrance: 21 (Es ist ein’ ros’ entsprungen) A great and mighty wonder

Responsorial Psalm: Psalm 128

Gradual: Sheet (The Holly and the Ivy) The holly and the ivy

Offertory: 36 (The First Nowell) The First Nowell

Communion: Sheet (In Dulci Jubilo) Good Christian men, rejoice

Recessional: Sheet (Tempest Adest Floridum) Good king Wenceslas

 

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 First Book of Samuel (1: 20-22, 24-28)

 

Hannah conceived and gave birth to a son, and called him Samuel ‘since’ she said ‘I asked the Lord for him.’

When a year had gone by, the husband Elkanah went up again with all his family to offer the annual sacrifice to the Lord and to fulfil his vow. Hannah, however, did not go up, having said to her husband, ‘Not before the child is weaned. Then I will bring him and present him before the Lord and he shall stay there for ever.’

When she had weaned him, she took him up with her together with a three-year-old bull, an ephah of flour and a skin of wine, and she brought him to the temple of the Lord at Shiloh; and the child was with them. They slaughtered the bull and the child’s mother came

to Eli. She said, ‘If you please, my lord. As you live, my lord, I am the woman who stood here beside you, praying to the Lord. This is the child I prayed for, and the Lord granted me what I asked him. Now I make him over to the Lord for the whole of his life. He is made over to the Lord.’

 

The Word of the Lord: Thanks be to God

 

Responsorial Psalm: (Ps. 84): They are happy who dwell in your house, O Lord.

 

How lovely is your dwelling place, Lord, God of hosts.

My soul is longing and yearning,

is yearning for the courts of the Lord.

My heart and my soul ring out their joy to God, the living God. (Response)

 

They are happy, who dwell in your house, for ever singing your praise.

They are happy, whose strength is in you,

in whose hearts are the roads to Zion. (Response)

O Lord God of hosts, hear my prayer, give ear, O God of Jacob.

Turn your eyes, O God, our shield,

look on the face of your anointed. (Response)

 

A reading from the first letter of John (3: 1-2, 21-24)

 

Think of the love that the Father has lavished on us,

by letting us be called God’s children; and that is what we are.

Because the world refused to acknowledge him, therefore it does not acknowledge us. My dear people, we are already the children of God but what we are to be in the future has not yet been revealed; all we know is, that when it is revealed we shall be like him because we shall see him as he really is.

My dear people, if we cannot be condemned by our own conscience, we need not be afraid in God’s presence, and whatever we ask him, we shall receive, because we keep his commandments and live the kind of life that he wants. His commandments are these:

that we believe in the name of his Son Jesus Christ and that we love one another as he told us to. Whoever keeps his commandments

lives in God and God lives in him. We know that he lives in us by the Spirit that he has given us.

 

The Word of the Lord: Thanks be to God

 

Gospel acclamation: Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia. Open our heart, O Lord,

to accept the words of your Son. Alleluia! The Lord be with you. And also with you.

+ A Reading from the Holy Gospel according to Luke (2: 41-52)

Glory to you, O Lord.

 

(after the Gospel reading):

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

 

A

lmighty 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. (Book of Common Prayer Collect)

 

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

Services: Unless noted, liturgies are followed by refreshments

Weds. 1st January: 10 a.m. (Low Mass) Sun. 5th January: 10 a.m. (Sung Mass)

 

Any person interested in serving during the liturgy this Christmastide

should make themselves known to Father Benjamin or to Oliver Knight. The church choir is also seeking to augment its membership. Please communicate interest to Oliver Knight.

 

Coffee Morning: January 9th (Thursday) 10:30 a.m., Apollonos 6

 

Walking Group and Study Group: details from Fr. Benjamin

Donate electronically by scanning the QR code;

the Church does not receive any

funding from the Church of England

or the British Government and is reliant

on the goodwill of congregants and visitors. We thank you for your support.

 

Priest Chaplain: Fr. Benjamin Drury frbenjamindrury@gmail.com;   Home tel.: 210 72 14 906

Deacon Christine Saccali :  (Day Off: Friday)      697 737 7655

anglican@otenet.gr (Church e-mail address)

Church of Sweden: Fr. Bjorn Kling  694 6072428

Facebook @AnglicanAthens   www.anglicanchurchathens.gr