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6 december

The angel said to Mary, “The Holy Spirit will come to you, and the power of the Most High God will cover you. The baby will be holy and will be called the Son of God.

The Hidden Light

Malcolm Guite

It’s getting darker, darker all the time 
And she is weary and beset with fear 
Yet in the darkness of her womb he stirs, 
Her tiny hope, the one who is to come. 
So on she plods, on past the hostile stares 
The checkpoints and the soldiers on the street 
Seeking some shelter, somewhere to retreat 
And bring to birth the hidden light she bears. 

She finds her shelter now and we attend her 
Attend this burdened girl who speaks for us, 
Whispers to God a broken world’s soft ‘yes, 
Come to be born with us, come find us here. 
Outface for us the darkness we can’t face, 
Show us the face of Love that casts out fear’.

“The music I have written picks up and runs with the emotive content, and because I feel so strongly for the words, the compositional process has felt like being a mirror focusing light to laser intensity.”  

Joanna Marsh
composer
on Malcolm Guite’s powerful new poem, ‘The Hidden Light’, commissioned for our Advent Carol Service.

O Holy Night

Oh holy night
The stars are brightly shining
It is the night
Of our dear Savior’s birth

Long lay the world
In sin and error pining
Till He appeared
and the soul felt it’s worth

A thrill of hope, the weary world rejoices
For yonder breaks a new and glorious morn

Fall on your knees
Oh, hear the angel voices
Oh, night divine
Oh, night when Christ was born
Oh, night divine
Oh night, oh night divine

Led by the light of faith serenely beaming
With glowing hearts by His cradle we stand
Over by night a star is sweetly gleaming
It came the wisemen from out of the Orient land

The King of kings lay thus lowly manger
In all our trials born to be our friends

Fall on your knees!
Oh, hear the angel voices
Oh, night divine
Oh, night when Christ was born
Oh, night divine

“I prefer peace. But if trouble must come, let it come in my time, so that my children can live in peace.”

Thomas Paine

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