A cherished tradition for me has been attending the late-night Christmas Eve service at a local Anglican or Episcopal church. When my family moved to Iccleshall St. Andrew’s in Suffolk when I was a boy, it was the parish church of Iccleshall St. Andrew’s, a ten-minute walk across the snow-covered Great Common from Rosecott, the cottage in which my grandparents, my mother, my older brother, and I lived. I have memories of walking across the common in the moonlight, bundled up against the cold, opening the door of the church, and gazing into the brightly-lit interior of the church. I don’t remember much else—the carols and hymns that we sung, the lessons and the sermon that we heard—just the bright light spilling out onto the moon-lit snow.
After my family immigrated to the United States and joined my aunt in southeast Louisiana in the late 1950s, the church we attended was Christ Church in Covington, the oldest Episcopal church in the parish of St. Tammany. In Louisiana counties are called "parishes." St. Tammany had two Episcopal churches at that time, at the opposite ends of the parish, both named Christ Church, which was also the name of the Episcopal cathedral in New Orleans, a little over 40 miles to the south. My mother became a member of the choir and my grandfather filled in for the organist on occasion. He had been a church organist when he was younger.
Christ Church, Covington had a late Christmas Eve service, which it does to this day. My memory is hazy as to how often I attend that service as a teenager. It would, however, become a regular practice later on when I became an adult. I continued to attend the Christ Church’s late night Christmas Eve service even after I transferred my membership to St. Michael’s in Mandeville, an Episcopal church that I had helped to launch in the mid-1980s and where I served as senior lay reader for 15 years.
For me Christ Church’s late night Christmas Eve service was quintessential of what an Episcopal late night Christmas service should be. As the members of the congregation arrived, the choir sung a medley of Christmas carols. The service itself began with a solemn procession with incense, lights, and a station collect.
The first year my grandnephew attended the service, he left our pew and joined his great grandmother as she processed around the church. The procession had made one circuit around the nave before the rector pause at our pew and asked for my help. On the next circuit the procession was to return to the chancel and he was at loss as to what to do with a small boy at that point.
The service always concluded with a celebration of the Holy Communion. For a number of years my mother baked the bread for this celebration.
St. Michael’s had a service earlier on Christmas Eve. It was preceded by a children’s pageant. The pre-school’s hand bell choir also performed. Christ Church would add a second service on Christmas Eve for the families of the children who attended the church’s day school. But these two worship experiences were entirely different from Christ Church’s late night Christmas Eve service.
The two churches that I have regularly attended since moving to western Kentucky do not have a Christmas Eve service—one because it meets on the campus of the local university and the university is closed on Christmas Eve; the other because it is very small and its members show little interest in attending a service on any occasion other than a Sunday. A number of its members also go out of town around Christmas.
I have visited several Anglican and Episcopal churches in the region, which have a Christmas Eve service. All of these churches were at least a 30 minute drive from where I live. One church I almost did not find due to its out-of-the-way location and its lack of signage. It was a very cold night and the church was poorly-heated.
This year I thought about attending the Christmas Eve service at the local Episcopal church. But I was not able to determine with any certainty from visiting its website and calling its church office whether it had a Christmas Eve service. The serving schedule suggested that it might. However, I do not like driving at night and I did not want to drive to the church to discover that I was mistaken.
The church itself enjoys a good reputation in the community. I have received positive reports from a number of people who have visited the church or are familiar with it. But like so many Anglican and Episcopal churches whose websites that I have visited, it appears not know how to make the best use of what is today the “front door” of a local church.
I hope that my readers have been or will be more fortunate than I am. For those who, like myself, are unable to attend a Christmas Eve service, I have included a selection of Christmas carols to usher in the Feast of Nativity: Wexford Carol,,Cherry Tree Carol (Instrumental), Noel Nouvelet, Es Ist Ein Ros Entsprungen, Quem Pastores Laudavere, and Deep Peace a Gaelic Blessing.
May God bless you and your loved ones this Christmastide and in the New Year. May he fill your lives with hope, joy, and peace.
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