Comfort and Joy - Daily Reflections

Over the last few months the Church of England team have worked with dioceses and people across the church on a new Advent and Christmas theme to reflect the current Covid context.

The hope is that Comfort and Joy will better enable us to reflect where the country is and will be by the end of this year. 

Comfort and Joy holds together the hope that Christmas will bring joy and celebration after a uniquely difficult year with an acknowledgement that – for those who have lost loved ones or livelihoods, or who are potentially still not able to be together with loved ones – it may be the Church’s role, both nationally and locally, to provide consolation, rather than assume everyone will be ready to join in jubilation. We also have to anticipate there may be further spikes.

The national Church will work with dioceses and churches to make a range of content available, branded with the Comfort and Joy theme:

Reflections - find out more here

The team have partnered with a number of public figures to produce short reflections exploring the theme. Comfort and Joy: Nine Lessons and Carols for Christmas mirrors the structure of a traditional carol service, exploring both biblical texts and the words of much-loved Christmas carols.

The reflections for each day from Christmas Day to 2 January feature contributions from;

• Kate Bottley
• Jonathan Bryan
• Bob Chilcott
• Martha Collison
• Stephen Cottrell
• Guli Francis-Dehqani
• Chine McDonald
• Sally Phillips and
• Justin Welby.

The booklets are now available to order (individually, or in packs of 10 or 50) from Church House Publishing. They will also made available freely via audio, smart speaker, as well as in app and email formats with accompanying prayer activities for children and families.

https://www.churchofengland.org/resources/preparing-advent-christmas-2020-comfort-and-joy