Advent Calendar

It was an ordinary Monday afternoon but I’d been looking forward to it for days: 2pm, Monday, a meeting with the Abbey organist and choirmaster, John Hughes. I like John an awful lot, and I enjoy a cup of tea with a fellow musician pretty much whenever. But that Monday we were discussing the music for my two favourite ecclesiastical seasons – Advent & Christmas; and I was pretty much like…well, a little boy on Christmas morning. Without wasting precious time on beverages and small talk we started exchanging musical ideas and very soon we were listening to choirs and sourcing publishers and wondering if our planning for the carol services was going to be bad for our altos’ blood pressure or cause our basses to tear out their (remaining) hair. Yes to both, probably.

Our fevered planning that afternoon means that the choir will be extra busy at the Abbey during Advent and Christmas, gargling will be heard across North Wiltshire as voices are looked after and new pieces by Paul Manz & Jonathan Dove with classics by Rachmaninoff and J.S. Bach are prepared. The music, with our congregational carols and our ancient lessons, forms an architecture to our worship as impressive as the abbey itself. But there is so much more to this coming season than beauty. In our holier moments Advent ignites within us longing and expectation – Come thou long expected Jesus, born to set thy people free – the Christ that came is still to come. And Christmas, as preachers tend to point out each year, is about presence, and our joy that the God present at Bethlehem is still present in Bethlehem and Syria and SN16 – O come to us, abide with us, our Lord Emmanuel. Longing, expectation, presence and joy – perhaps it’s these themes, with their associated music, that make me watch the calendar to Advent.

So two weeks until Advent Sunday and from Tuesday 20^th November we’d like you to pop in to the abbey and grab a pack of Advent and Christmas brochures to deliver across the town as we let 3,000 households know what they’re (not) missing. We love welcoming new faces to the Abbey and helping people become part of our community – so please get involved by delivering a few brochures and bringing glad tidings to your neighbours.

Incidentally, last Sunday I forgot to mention to our assembled congregations that the preacher at our services at 10.30am and 4pm this Sunday is the Rt Revd Lee Rayfield, Bishop of Swindon. (Please don’t mention this to him.) Bishop Lee is a regular visitor and a great friend of Malmesbury and he has personally been offering pastoral support and guidance to Lee & Mary Barnes in the last month, for which we are immensely grateful.