Bishops reflect on anxiety, uncertainty and hope in Christmas messages
The Bishops of Exeter and Bath & Wells have been reflecting on the past year in their festive messages
Last updated 26th Dec 2024
The Bishop of Exeter will be spending Christmas Day at the city's prison and with the homeless whilst the Bishop of Bath and Wells has been spending time talking about the meaning of Christmas with pupils at St Paul's Junior in Shepton Mallet.
The Right Reverend doctor Mike Harrison was only enthroned as the 72nd Bishop of Exeter last month and says this year's Christmas message will reflect the anxiety and uncertainty in the world - but also ongoing work to help each other.
On Christmas Day the Bishop visit Exeter Prison to lead a Christmas service, before travelling onto the city’s St Petrock’s homelessness charity to spend time with the community there.
Bishop Mike is a keen baker and his pre-recorded Christmas message video this year features him making sausage rolls to share with others.
Bishop Mike’s favourite Christmas carol is Silent Night, and the Church of England’s Christmas campaign this year takes the phrase ‘Calm and Bright’ from the carol as its theme.
Across Devon, churches are inviting people in their communities to carol services, crib services and other events to experience a moment of ‘calm’ in the Christmas rush and the ‘bright’ hope of the Christmas story.
He said: "If you are feeling overwhelmed by Christmas, isolated or down, and would love to see a friendly face and gather with others for hospitality and more, then I would really encourage you to pop along to your local church.”
The Rt Rev Michael Beasley recorded a video of his Christmas message at St Paul’s Church of England Junior School in Shepton Mallet. Pupils from the school asked the bishop about his plans for Christmas and shared a prayer specially written for the video and the school choir also sang Silent Night.
He said: "All around us preparations for Christmas are going on everywhere. Christmas cards are being written; homes decorated and rehearsals of Christmas carols that will be sung at carol services are taking place.
Among the carols being sung is ‘Silent Night’. It was written in Austria at the beginning of the 19th century – it’s said that it was written at short notice and set to a guitar because the organ in the village where the carol was composed had broken down.
‘Silent Night’ is a beautiful, image-filled song of Christmas. You can almost see a snow filled village in Austria, a church overlooked by mountains and trees, lit by candlelight, a congregation singing about the birth of the Christ child.
All is calm. All is bright. Was this what it was like for Mary and Joseph on that first Christmas? I don’t think so for a moment."