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Tuesday, 2 December 2025

Advent Reflection: Seven Great O Antiphons

The Advent reflection I shared today with the Basildon Chapter was based on Malcolm Guite's Advent Antiphon sonnets and Steve Bell's use of them on Keening for the Dawn:

'We are at the beginning of a holy season in which we connect again with our ‘inconsolable longing’, as C.S. Lewis called it, our yearning for the One who is to come and is also, mysteriously, the One who has come already, come as child, come as fellow-sufferer, come as Saviour, and yet whose coming, already achieved, we hold at bay from ourselves, so that we have to learn afresh each year, even each day, how to let him come to us again.

In the first centuries the Church had a beautiful custom of praying seven great prayers calling afresh on Christ to come, calling him by the mysterious titles he has in Isaiah,' calling to him; O Emmanuel (God With Us) ; O Sapientia (Wisdom); O Radix (Root); O Oriens (Daystar); O Clavis (Key); O Adonai (Great Lord); and O Rex Gentium (Desire of Nations).

'These antiphons were sung before and after the Magniﬁcat at Vespers, according to the Roman use, on the seven days preceding Christmas Eve (17–23 December). They are addressed to God, calling for him to come as teacher and deliverer, with a tapestry of scriptural titles and pictures that describe his saving work in Christ. In the medieval rite of Salisbury Cathedral that was widely followed in England before the Reformation, the antiphons began on 16 December and there was an additional antiphon (‘O Virgin of virgins’) on 23 December; this is reﬂected in the Calendar of The Book of Common Prayer, where 16 December is designated O Sapientia (O Wisdom).'

'Until a few years ago, I didn’t know what these “Great O Antiphons” were; although I was well acquainted with the song (O come, O come Emmanuel) that preserves the tradition and these seven ancient, prophetic names' for the Christ.

The person who made me aware of these Advent Antiphons was the priest-poet Malcolm Guite, who has 'responded to these seven Antiphons with seven sonnets, re-voicing them for our own age now, but preserving the heart of each, which is a prayer for Christ’s Advent for his coming, now in us, and at the end of time, in and for all.'

Click here to read Malcolm Guite's sonnet O Sapientia.

'The last of the Seven Great O Antiphons, which was sung on either side of the Magnificat, is O Emmanuel, O God with us. This is the antiphon from which our lovely Advent hymn takes its name. It was also this final antiphon which revealed the secret message embedded subtly into the whole antiphon sequence. In each of these antiphons we call on Christ to come to us, to come as Light as Key, as King, as God-with-us. Now, singing this Antiphon standing on the brink of Christmas Eve, looking back at the illuminated capital letters for each of the seven titles of Christ we would see an answer to our pleas : ERO CRAS, the latin words meaning ‘Tomorrow I will come!”

O Emmanuel
O Rex
O Oriens

O Clavis
O Radix
O Adonai
O Sapientia'

Malcolm Guite in his final sonnet 'tries to look back across the other titles of Christ, but also to look forward, beyond Christmas, to the new birth for humanity and for the whole cosmos, which is promised in the birth of God in our midst.'

Click here to read Malcolm Guite's sonnet O Emmanuel.

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Steve Bell - O Come, O Come Emmanuel.

Artlyst - The Art Diary December 2025

My December Art Diary for Artlyst highlights books and exhibitions exploring themes of national art – both British and Sudanese. I have also included several other art books that may be of interest as gifts at Christmas. Then I turn to exhibitions in ecclesiastical settings, along with others that feature Edmund de Waal, Paula Rego, and Sean Scully. Books also feature in a range of linked ways in several of these exhibitions, too:

'The ambitious and entrepreneurial Turner had a rapid rise to prominence. At the same time, Constable was equally determined to forge his own path as an artist but faced a longer, more arduous rise to acclaim. Though from different worlds, both artists were united in their desire to transform landscape painting for the better. Turner painted blazing sunsets and sublime scenes from his travels. At the same time, Constable often returned to depictions of a handful of beloved places, striving for freshness and authenticity in his portrayal of nature. As they vied for success through these very different yet equally bold approaches, the stage was set for a heady rivalry in the competitive world of landscape art. As Grosvenor notes in his book, their achievements established a form of British art that drew on earlier religious inspirations, exploring these within a spirit of place and the illumination of divine light.'

My other pieces for Artlyst are:

Interviews -

Monthly diary articles -

Articles/Reviews -

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Steve Scott - Different Kind Of Light.

Monday, 1 December 2025

Visual Commentary on Scripture - Advent: Hope, Peace, Joy, and Love

Advent: Hope, Peace, Joy, and Love

This year's Visual Commentary on Scripture Advent programme has a slightly different look than those from previous years. Instead of daily emails for the duration of Advent, they will be sending their Exhibition of the Week subscribers an email every Monday starting December 1st, with links to seven different works of art and commentaries for each day of the week. Think of it as a traditional Advent calendar! Each of the four weeks has a different theme, starting with Hope, then Peace, followed by Joy, and ending with Love in the week of Christmas.

Anyone subscribed to their Exhibition of the Week will receive the weekly Advent emails. They hope you enjoy journeying towards Christmas with the help of these works of art.

Sign up for their Exhibition of the Week

The first week's commentaries include one of the commentaries from my exhibition 'A Question of Faith' which explores Hebrews 11 through the paintings of New Zealand artist Colin McCahon. McCahon is widely recognised as New Zealand’s foremost painter. Over 45 years, his work encompassed many themes, subjects and styles, from landscape to figuration to abstraction and an innovative use of painted text. His adaption of aspects of modernist painting to a specific local situation and his intense engagement with spiritual matters, mark him out as a distinctive figure in twentieth-century art.

Another of the commentaries from this exhibition featured recently in a Bible and Art Daily episode from VCS. This commentary featured in the series on Picturing the Trinity: There are perils and peculiarities involved in visually depicting the Holy Trinity. Christianity insists that divinity is invisible, even if Jesus in his humanity reveals God’s purposes and presence. And the Bible’s multiplicity of images of what God might be ‘like’ forbid settling on any one as descriptively adequate. Some visual art has risked anthropomorphizing God; some has experimented with oblique or abstract modes of signification, recognizing that God ‘dwells in unapproachable light, whom [no one] has ever seen or can see’ (1 Timothy 6:16).

Bible and Art Daily is a new daily email exploring the Bible through art. Through concise but vivid day-by-day encounters, it will take you on a series of journeys through the world of Scripture and the history of art. The VCS have spent the last year bringing together experts in theology and art history to carefully curate a treasury of week-long series, each exploring a particular theme, an artistic medium, or a biblical character. Find out more and subscribe here.

The VCS is a freely accessible online publication that provides theological commentary on the Bible in dialogue with works of art. It helps its users to (re)discover the Bible in new ways through the illuminating interaction of artworks, scriptural texts, and commissioned commentaries. The virtual exhibitions of the VCS aim to facilitate new possibilities of seeing and reading so that the biblical text and the selected works of art come alive in new and vivid ways.

Each section of the VCS is a virtual exhibition comprising a biblical passage, three art works, and their associated commentaries. The curators of each exhibition select artworks that they consider will open up the biblical texts for interpretation, and/or offer new perspectives on themes the texts address. The commentaries explain and interpret the relationships between the works of art and the scriptural text.

Find out more about the VCS, its exhibitions and other resources through a short series of HeartEdge workshops introducing the VCS as a whole and exploring particular exhibitions with their curators. These workshops can be viewed here, here, here and here.

My other exhibitions for the VCS are:

'Back from the Brink' on Daniel 4: 'Immediately the word was fulfilled upon Nebuchadnezzar. He was driven from among men, and ate grass like an ox, and his body was wet with the dew of heaven till his hair grew as long as eagles’ feathers, and his nails were like birds’ claws.' (Daniel 4:33). In the exhibition I explore this chapter with William Blake's 'Nebuchadnezzar', 1795–c.1805, Arthur Boyd's 'Nebuchadnezzar's Dream of the Tree', 1969, and Peter Howson's 'The Third Step', 2001.
'Fishers of People' which uses Damien Hirst's 'Isolated Elements Swimming in the Same Direction for the Purpose of Understanding (Left) and (Right)', John Bellany's 'Kinlochbervie', and Paul Thek's 'Fishman in Excelsis Table' to discuss Matthew 4:12-22 and Mark 1:14-20. These artworks give us what is essentially a collage of the kingdom whereby we are invited to imagine the kingdom of God as a body of water in which Christians are immersed and through which they are raised.
'Before the Deluge', a series of climate-focused commentaries on Genesis 6 looking at 'The Flood' by Norman Adams, 'Noah in the Ark and a Church' by Albert Herbert, and 'Noah's Ark' by Sadao Watanabe.
Reflecting on 1 Thessalonians 2:17–4:12, 'Establishing the Heart' includes works of art by Antoine Camilleri, John Reilly and Stanley Spencer. This exhibition explores how pleasing God in our everyday lives - by living quietly, minding our own affairs, and working with our hands - leads us to see life, work and art as prayer.

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Josh Garrels - Pilot Me.

Sunday, 30 November 2025

Advent Resources

This year, in addition to Advent resources with which I have been involved, I also want to share information about resources from HeartEdge.

Advent HeartEdge Group Online

In December HeartEdge will be running an on-line group using the HeartEdge Advent Resource.

You are invited into a journey of hope, abundance and incarnation. Rooted in the mystery of God becoming flesh we explore what it means to make space for Christ where life is fragile, hidden yet full of possibility.

Mondays December 1st, 8th, 15th and 22nd at 10.30am.

Register Here

After registering, you will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the meeting. By registering you will be able to attend any or all of the meetings.

Advent Calendar Online

A version of the Advent Calendar that has been adapted by the Franciscans is now available on line.

Franciscan Advent Calendar

Making room for Christ through Advent

This Advent, HeartEdge invites individuals, families, and communities to pause, reflect, and make space. Heartbeat of the Incarnation brings together three distinct but deeply connected Advent resources designed to help us live into the mystery of God with us – Emmanuel – in ways that are hopeful, and rooted in everyday life.

Weekly Group Study THE ADVENT HEARTBEAT COURSE

The four-week Bible study series is written for small groups, churches, and HeartEdge communities. It can be used during Advent or in the weeks leading up to it. Each session explores a key theme of incarnation and belonging:

Saying ‘Yes’: Making Space in a World of Scarcity
The Womb as Holy Ground: Finding God in Hidden Places
The Cost of Love: Mary’s Labour, God’s Compassion
Birthing Christ Today: Church on the Edge

Daily Reflections 25 DAILY ADVENT WONDERINGS

The day-by-day journey through Advent draws inspiration from the mystery of pregnancy and the hidden development of Christ in the womb. Each day includes:

A reflection grounded in the developmental stages of pregnancy
A wondering
A reflective action – inviting heart, mind, and body to prepare room for Christ

This is more than a countdown to Christmas. It’s a call to transformation, to slow down and notice where Christ is already gestating in our midst – especially at the edges of our lives.

The books are available at £10 Please email heartedge@smitf.org to order with details of a postal address and HeartEdge will post and send an invoice with details of how to pay by BACS.

Come, Lord Jesus, Come

'Come, Lord Jesus, Come' is an Advent devotional (booklet & slideshow) by Victoria Emily Jones based on an Advent meditation written by myself. Each line of the meditation focuses on one aspect of Christ’s coming. To promote deeper reflection on all these aspects, Victoria has selected twenty-four art images to lead the way in stoking our imaginations and to provide entry points into prayer. She has taken special care to present art from around the world and, where possible, by modern or contemporary artists so that we will be stretched beyond the familiar imagery of the season.

Victoria writes: 'Art is a great way to open yourself up to the mysteries of God, to sit in the pocket of them as you gaze and ponder. “Blessed are your eyes because they see,” Jesus said. Theologians in their own right, artists are committed to helping us see what was and what is and what could be. Here I’ve taken special care to select images by artists from around the world, not just the West, and ones that go beyond the familiar fare. You’ll see, for example, the Holy Spirit depositing the divine seed into Mary’s womb; Mary with a baby bump, and then with midwives; an outback birth with kangaroos, emus, and lizards in attendance; Jesus as a Filipino slum dweller; and Quaker history married to Isaiah’s vision of the Peaceable Kingdom.'

Through 'Come, Lord Jesus, Come' you are invited to consider what it meant for Jesus to be born of woman—coming as seed and fetus and birthed son; the poverty Jesus shared with children around the world; culturally specific bodies of Christ, like a dancing body and a yogic body; how we are called to bear God into the world today; and more.

Victoria writes: 'Advent takes us back and brings us forward. In preparing us to celebrate Christ’s first coming, it places us alongside the ancient prophets, who awaited with aching intensity the fulfilled promise of a messiah, and Joseph and Mary, whose pregnancy made the expectation all the more palpable; it also strengthens our longing for Christ’s second coming, when he will return to fully and finally establish his kingdom on earth ... May God bless you this Advent season as you ponder the amazing truth of the Incarnation.'

Love is ...

My 'Love is ...' meditation for Advent can be found by clicking here. This meditation ponders the love Mary demonstrated at various points along the way from the announcement of Jesus’s conception to her and her family’s resettlement in Egypt.

Alternative Nine Lessons

Additionally, I have a series of poetic meditations which draw on the thinking of René Girard in interpreting the Bible readings traditionally used in services of Nine Lessons and Carols. This set of Alternative Nine Lessons and Carols meditations can be found by clicking here.

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Steve Bell - O Come, O Come Emmanuel (featuring Malcolm Guite).

Saturday, 29 November 2025

Windows on the world (547)

Norwich, 2025

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Marianne Faithfull - Visions Of Johanna.

International Times - 'Vision On': a review of 'Lux' by Rosalía

My latest review for International Times is on Lux by Rosalía:

'Lux has been three years in the making, with the first year dedicated to learning languages by roughing out initial lyrics using Google Translate before finalising her lyrics using professional translators. Alongside her phonetic adventures, Rosalía has also been on a historical and spiritual deep-dive into feminism and mysticism by means of female saints from a range of different faith communities. Each of the 18 songs has been inspired by the life of a different female saint, including Hildegard of Bingen, Olga of Kiev, Rabia Al-Adawiya, Miriam, and Vimala, among many others.'

My earlier pieces for IT are: an interview with the artist Alexander de Cadenet; an interview with artist, poet, priest Spencer Reece, an interview with the poet Chris Emery, an interview with Jago Cooper, Director of the the Sainsbury Centre for Visual Arts, a profile of singer-songwriter Bill Fay, plus reviews of: 'Springsteen: Deliver Me from Nowhere'; 'Great Art Explained' by James Payne; 'Down River: In Search of David Ackles' by Mark Brend; 'Headwater' by Rev Simpkins; 'The Invisibility of Religion in Contemporary Art' by Jonathan A. Anderson; 'Breaking Lines' at the Estorick Collection of Modern Italian Art, albums by Deacon Blue, Mumford and Sons, and Andrew Rumsey, also by Joy Oladokun and Michael Kiwanaku; 'Nolan's Africa' by Andrew Turley; Mavis Staples in concert at Union Chapel; T Bone Burnett's 'The Other Side' and Peter Case live in Leytonstone; Helaine Blumenfeld's 'Together' exhibition, 'What Is and Might Be and then Otherwise' by David Miller; 'Giacometti in Paris' by Michael Peppiatt, the first Pissabed Prophet album; and 'Religion and Contemporary Art: A Curious Accord', a book which derives from a 2017 symposium organised by the Association of Scholars of Christianity in the History of Art.

Several of my short stories have been published by IT including three about Nicola Ravenscroft's EarthAngel sculptures (then called mudcubs), which we exhibited at St Andrew's Wickford in 2022. The first story in the series is 'The Mudcubs and the O Zone holes'. The second is 'The Mudcubs and the Clean-Up King', and the third is 'The mudcubs and the Wall'. My other short stories to have been published by International Times are 'The Black Rain', a story about the impact of violence in our media, 'The New Dark Ages', a story about principles and understandings that are gradually fading away from our modern societies, and 'The curious glasses', a story based on the butterfly effect.

IT have also published several of my poems, including 'The ABC of creativity', which covers attention, beginning and creation, and 'The Edge of Chaos', a state of existence poem. Also published have been three poems from my 'Five Trios' series. 'Barking' is about St Margaret’s Barking and Barking Abbey and draws on my time as a curate at St Margaret's. 'Bradwell' is a celebration of the history of the Chapel of St Peter-on-the-Wall, the Othona Community, and of pilgrimage to those places. Broomfield in Essex became a village of artists following the arrival of Revd John Rutherford in 1930. His daughter, the artist Rosemary Rutherford, also moved with them and made the vicarage a base for her artwork including paintings and stained glass. Then, Gwynneth Holt and Thomas Bayliss Huxley-Jones moved to Broomfield in 1949 where they shared a large studio in their garden and both achieved high personal success. 'Broomfield' reviews their stories, work, legacy and motivations.

To read my poems published by Stride, click here, here, here, here, here, and here. My poems published in Amethyst Review are: 'Runwell', 'Are/Are Not', 'Attend, attend' and 'Maritain, Green, Beckett and Anderson in conversation down through the ages'.

I am among those whose poetry has been included in Thin Places & Sacred Spaces, a recent anthology from Amethyst Press. I also had a poem included in All Shall Be Well: Poems for Julian of Norwich, the first Amethyst Press anthology of new poems.

'Five Trios' is a series of poems on thin places and sacred spaces in the Diocese of Chelmsford. The five poems in the series are:

These poems have been published by Amethyst Review and International Times.

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ROSALÍA - Sauvignon Blanc.

Friday, 28 November 2025

Parish of Wickford & Runwell: Advent and Christmas

Christmas Bazaar

Saturday 29 November
10.00 am – 1.00 pm, St Andrew’s Church
(for the Wickford & Runwell Team Ministry – St Andrew’s, St Catherine’s & St Mary’s)

• School Choirs performing
• Guess the weight of the cake
• Tombola & Bottle Tombola
• Christmas Gifts & Crafts
• How many sweets?
• Cakes & Produce
• Name the Teddy
• Children’s Lucky Dip
• Meet Santa & his Elf
• Refreshments

Add angel wings to our Christmas tree with a dedication or prayer and make a donation to St Luke’s Hospice. Angel wings will be available from our Christmas Bazaar until Christmas to give lots of opportunities to donate to St Luke's Hospice.

WICKFORD AND RUNWELL TEAM MINISTRY
ADVENT AND CHRISTMAS 2025

Advent

Saturday 22nd November: Messy Church, 2pm in St Andrew’s

Mondays in Advent: Advent Night Prayer with Reflection, 8pm in St Andrew’s (1, 8, 15, 22 December)

Sunday 7th December: Advent Carol Service, 6.30pm in St Catherine’s

Sunday 14th December: ‘Blue Christmas’ service, 6.30pm in St Mary’s for those who are grieving and for whom a Happy Christmas will be difficult

Sunday 21st December: Parish Carol Service, 6.30pm in St Andrew’s

Christmas

Wednesday 24th December, Christmas Eve: Christingle Service 2pm, 3pm, 4pm in St Catherine’s Crib Service 2pm and 3.30pm in St Mary’s Crib Service 5pm in St Andrew’s Midnight Mass 11.30pm in St Andrew's, St Catherine’s and St Mary’s

Thursday 25th December, Christmas Day: Eucharist 9.30am in St Mary’s Eucharist, 10am in St Andrew’s Eucharist, 10.30am in St Catherine’s

Sunday 28th December: Eucharist, 9.30am in St Mary’s; Morning Praise, 10.00am in St Andrew's; Eucharist, 11.00am in St Catherine's; BCP Evensong, 6.30pm in St Catherine’s

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Emmylou Harris - Light Of The Stable.