WELCOME TO ST DENYS CHURCH​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​

ROOM WANTED FOR YOUNG COUPLE A LONG WAY FROM HOME.

 

Here is an invitation to enter into the Christmas story in a new way this year.  At St Denys people have been invited to host Mary and Joseph as they travel towards Bethlehem and that famous stable. 

 

‘Posada’ is a Spanish word for resting place or inn.  It is the name for a tradition from Mexico  where young people dressed as Mary and Joseph travelled from house to house asking for a room for the night and telling people about the imminent arrival of Jesus in the weeks leading up to Christmas.  On Christmas Eve they would visit the local church to re-enact the nativity and place figures of Mary and Joseph in a crib.

 

Modern day Posadas use nativity figures of Mary and Joseph who travel from place to place. This gives each ‘host’ the chance to create their own celebration in their home or place in the community, worshipping and reaching out to their communities with the real message of Christmas, making room for Jesus in their lives.

 

At St Denys we have our very own ‘Knitivity’, a knitted Mary and Joseph who are right now somewhere in the community with their donkey spending each night in a different house as they travel round the parish.  It will be great to look back on where they have been at our Crib Service on Christmas Eve and to see some photos of their travels.

 

But it isn’t just a fun tradition.  It is a way of bringing home the fact that Jesus was not born in a grand palace but in the most ordinary and humble of places in somebody else’s stable. 

 

Advent can be such a frantic time of year as we prepare for Christmas.  But the invitation this Advent is not only to make room in our homes for figures from the Christmas story but also to make time in our busy lives to stop and simply wonder at the amazing gift of God’s love revealed in a newborn baby lying in a manger.