Knights Templar. Christmas Carol Service.
On Saturday 15th December the Knights mustered, with their families, to the Abbey Guesthouse Chapel for a Carol Service.
Expectations were heightened by some delay in the arrival of the good Knight who produced the Carol booklet. A large seven branch candelabra MINORA seemed an apt focal form of illumination in the Chapel. The organist had brought his own keyboard and set the atmosphere under the painted ceiling of the shields of the Holy Roman Empire. The singing ushered in a procession of the Knights in their Red & White regalia.
Without too much organizing the five carols gave the framework in which the members contributed Reading Intercessions etc.
There was a short Christmas meditation.
'A light that shines in the dark."
“ ‘Twas the night before Christmas, when all through the house not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse ... " So begins "The Night before Christmas", the story of a visit by St Nicholas on Christmas Eve. The author, Clement C. Moore, wrote it for his children nearly two hundred years ago.
In Beverley Minster, in York England, there is a misericord that has an image of mice dancing while a cat plays a fiddle. Centuries ago people danced to carols and so perhaps this is what the mice are doing. They and the cat are full of joy and (unusually for cats and mice) they are friends. It brings to mind the prophecy of I~ that the "wolf will live with the lamb" for, through God's gift, humanity w redeemed and creation restored to its original innocence. This is aja great that it should make us dance. (from The Living Word).
The illustration is of the seal of the Grand Priory of South East Scotland and the Nunraw shield. Note the symbol of the Lamb bearing the Templar (Cistercian) flag, halved in black and white.
On Saturday 15th December the Knights mustered, with their families, to the Abbey Guesthouse Chapel for a Carol Service.
Expectations were heightened by some delay in the arrival of the good Knight who produced the Carol booklet. A large seven branch candelabra MINORA seemed an apt focal form of illumination in the Chapel. The organist had brought his own keyboard and set the atmosphere under the painted ceiling of the shields of the Holy Roman Empire. The singing ushered in a procession of the Knights in their Red & White regalia.
Without too much organizing the five carols gave the framework in which the members contributed Reading Intercessions etc.
There was a short Christmas meditation.
'A light that shines in the dark."
“ ‘Twas the night before Christmas, when all through the house not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse ... " So begins "The Night before Christmas", the story of a visit by St Nicholas on Christmas Eve. The author, Clement C. Moore, wrote it for his children nearly two hundred years ago.
In Beverley Minster, in York England, there is a misericord that has an image of mice dancing while a cat plays a fiddle. Centuries ago people danced to carols and so perhaps this is what the mice are doing. They and the cat are full of joy and (unusually for cats and mice) they are friends. It brings to mind the prophecy of I~ that the "wolf will live with the lamb" for, through God's gift, humanity w redeemed and creation restored to its original innocence. This is aja great that it should make us dance. (from The Living Word).
The illustration is of the seal of the Grand Priory of South East Scotland and the Nunraw shield. Note the symbol of the Lamb bearing the Templar (Cistercian) flag, halved in black and white.
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