Worship - Weekday Feast-days

Lady Chapel Triptych - Christmas/Epiphany

It has long been our custom, wherever possible, to celebrate the principal feast-days of Our Lord and Our Lady on their designated date, especially so when the date itself is of significance. When this is a weekday there is a Parish Mass, generally at 7.30 pm. These holy days also displace 'ordinary' Sundays, with services at the usual times. Some such occasions have forms of service specific to the day.

Though counter cultural, we believe it is appropriate - symbolically and spiritually - to observe principal holy days in this way. The great strength of the Christian calendar rests to a significant degree on the knowledge that fellow Christians around the world are praying and worshipping together with similar intention at the same time. So, The Epiphany of the Lord is kept on 6 January, the day after Twelfth Night, and the date on which the Eastern Church celebrates the birth of the Saviour. The Annunciation of the Lord (25 March) is celebrated exactly nine months, or one gestation period, before Christmas Day, unless displaced by the variable date Holy Week and Easter. And the Birth of the Blessed Virgin Mary (8 September) is nine months after the Conception of the Virgin Mary (8 December), which cannot be kept on a Sunday due to the Season of Advent.

The number forty is significant in Scripture. After his baptism in the River Jordan, Jesus spent forty days in the desert before beginning his three year ministry, recalling how the Israelites wandered forty years in the desert before finally reaching the Promised Land. Similarly, the feast of Candlemas, or The Presentation of Christ in the Temple, is kept on 2 February, forty days after Christmas Day, and is the pivot point between Christmas and Easter with forty days in Lent, between Ash Wednesday and Maundy Thursday, recalling Jesus' time of testing and discernment in the desert.

God's children can gather to worship God on any day, not only on a Sunday. Such weekday celebrations are sung either by St Matthew's Church Choir or St Matthew's Singers. Please refer to the special services coming up page for details of upcoming weekday celebrations.

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