Christmas Proclamation
Posted on December 16th, 2011
For you pastors and church musicians: I’ve been using the Christmas Proclamation for the last few years. This year (as last) we will use it to begin the 11pm Divine Service on Christmas Eve. There are various versions of it floating around, but this is the one that I use.
Tagged: Chant, Christmas, Christmas Proclamation
Do you use the “innumerable ages” language as printed or modify it to reflect a young earth. I used one last year that was much more respectful of our stance on creation. Need to find it though…
I do use that language, not because I don’t believe in a young earth, I’m just not confident that it can be nailed down to the precise number of years. I’d never been bothered by the “innumerable ages” language until now, so thanks a lot for putting that in my head!
I saw one on line that used the language of (paraphrasing from memory), “Billions of years since the creation of the world, millions of years since the fall into sin…”. Yikes.
That’s a good question, which I had not considered. As my colleague, Fr Charles McClean, recently said in a sermon, “I’ve never been much interested in the calendar” (meaning not the church calendar, but how the cycles of moon phases and solstices, etc. are calculated). That sums up my attitude as well. If you find something that’s more suitable, I’d love to see it.
What gets me all gooey is the Gregorian notation.
Where and how do you use it?
At our 11pm Christmas Eve service, I chant it from the back of the church before we process in during the first hymn. There’s a newer version for this year – I’ll pst a link later on.
Just noticed the thirteen centuries between Exodus and Nativity . . . sounds like something that would make the historical-critical crowd happy.
Easily fixed without having to give a precise date (you can pencil this in yourself) by substituting “Many ages…”. I myself just change it to “Fourteen centuries.” It’s not exact, but close enough.
The more I think about it, it would be better to say, “In the fifteenth century…”. That’s what I’m going to do this year.