It’s the beginning of the Season of Advent and a new Church Year! The focus for our Service on the First Sunday of Advent is hope, something needed in our world now as much as it’s ever been. We gather in the hope of our Lord's coming and all that the fullness of his Presence means, and are stirred to experience, embody, and share the first light of the approaching dawn wherever night still covers the earth.
Symbolizing this, we’re lighting the Hope Candle in the Advent Wreath. Each Sunday in Advent, we’ll light the Wreath with our children, in-person and online, to help Advent be for them a Season of anticipating more than just Christmas presents under the tree. Norman is celebrating, and Fergus preaching. Our Readings are now from Year C (the year of the Gospel according to Luke). Throughout Advent, we’ll be saying a Canticle together, instead of a Psalm. Sofia is giving the First Reading via Zoom. Doreen is in-person to lead us in the Prayers of the People. Our Virtual Choir is leading us in our Congregational singing, including our Opening Hymn, the great Hymn of Advent, “O Come, O Come Emmanuel.” And we’re receiving in our hearts with thanksgiving the One for whom we wait, a foretaste of the Heavenly Banquet yet to come, as we share Spiritual Communion together spiritually or physically. It’s the fourth Sunday of the month, and so we’re sharing a Triple C Service together (a Christ-centred Creative Celebration). Look for the Great Litany; a Prayer marking World AIDS Day on Dec. 1; and a Prayer lifting up those in flood-torn parts of our country, and parts of our Service from the Church of England and the Baptist and Uniting Churches in Australia.
Today’s Service of Holy Eucharist will be livestreamed on our main Facebook page (https://www.facebook.com/stpaulscalgary) at 9:30 am. Following the service, the video will be posted on our YouTube Channel, and a link to the service will be added here. To watch this service in full screen mode, please click on the “Watch on YouTube” button in the lower left-hand corner of the video. Please download the Order of Service in the Sermon Notes above if you would like to follow along. If you are sharing this Service online and don’t have Reserved Sacrament, you are invited to say the Prayer for Communion for those receiving Spiritual Communion also available above.
Permission to reprint, podcast, and/or stream the music in this service obtained from:
(a) ONE LICENSE with license # A-713985, and/or
(b) CCLI with Streaming License # 20351479.
All rights reserved.