A season of generosity for Advent and beyond

Comfort and Joy: A Christmas Gift

Stories of generosity will feature as part of a new project to remind people across the Diocese of St Asaph that we are a generous nation and acts of generosity can be found anywhere.

Comfort and Joy: A Christmas Gift will hear from people from different walks of life about when they have been generous or someone has been generous to them.

In addition, a series of daily reflections will focus on the Christmas story and the greatest gift, the birth of Jesus.

The stories will be included in this year’s online Advent Calendar which will showcase various themes associated with Advent, such as angels, light and hope.  While Advent Sunday is 29 November, the Advent Calendar will follow calendar tradition with the first door available to open on 1 December.

Other resources and ideas are available to help churches and communities to mark Advent (the season of preparation before Christmas) in Covid-safe ways. These include:

• Bishop Gregory’s Advent Message which will be delivered in all churches or used in online services on Advent Sunday, 29 November, which begins a four week countdown to Christmas Day.
• On Advent Sunday, St Asaph Cathedral and St Giles Church in Wrexham will be floodlit and lit up from inside as a symbol of Christ’s light and love in our communities. Traditionally, churches mark Advent Sunday with services which begin in candlelit darkness and end with the church fully lit, to represent the coming of God’s light into the darkness of the world.  With services limited this year, all churches are invited to join in the light-up after dark and shine out on Advent Sunday.
• All six bishops of the Church in Wales are calling on people to join them in a prayer for Wales every evening at 6pm from Advent Sunday until Christmas Day.
• Bishop Gregory has designed a Christmas Card, which includes a message for everyone this Christmas.  Local churches can customise the card to include details of their own services.  The card includes 12 ways to celebrate the 12 Days of Christmas (25 December – 6 January).
• Christingle services are often popular at this time of year, and the Aled Mission Area has created an alternative Christingle this year. The Christingle-Cube can be downloaded and made at home and an accompanying video explains the meaning of the Christingle orange.
• St Asaph Cathedral is making craft bags available for families to create their own Angel Positivity boxes.  The bags are available to collect from 1 December by emailing Lorna Kernahan.

Churches across the diocese are developing plans to hold Covid-safe services. Many will be (free) ticket-only in order to manage numbers and ensure social distancing.  Congregational carol-singing is not permitted this year but church choirs will be performing many of the much-loved Christmas carols.  Online services will continue too.

The Diocese of St Asaph is one of the six dioceses of the Church in Wales, an independent Province of the Anglican Communion.  In normal times regular services and activities take place in more than 200 churches and the diocese looks after 51 Church in Wales Schools.