“I’ll have a blue Christmas without you,” sang Elvis Presley in 1957.
63 years later and Christmas will be ‘blue’ for many people. We’ll be missing people who would usually be with us at the special time of the year.
Some of you will have lost people you love during this past year – at St Mary’s, Beeston, we are mourning members of our church and others in the community. 2020 has not left any of us untouched. It’s going to be a ‘blue Christmas’.
And at this time of year there would usually be lots of gatherings of families and friends – and we’re very limited in what we can do this year. It’s especially hard for people who live by themselves, or a long way from their families.
In church we’d be looking forward to people singing carols and pretending to be sheep and stars and angels. And celebrating Midnight Mass as Christmas Eve becomes Christmas Day. None of that is possible this year, although we do have a few things planned – see our Facebook page: Beeston Parish Centre, or our noticeboard.
Sadly we can’t make everything right but at St Mary’s we’d like to offer a special way for you to mark the loss, and to say a prayer if you want to.
In the week before Christmas we’re inviting people to come into church to light a candle for someone who won’t be with them this year. We hope the peaceful atmosphere of St Mary’s will bring you some peace and comfort.
So if you would like to light a candle for someone who won’t be with you – or for yourself – come to St Mary’s Church, Beeston from Sunday 20 December:
Sunday, Tuesday and Thursday 1:30-3pm
Monday and Wednesday 10:30am-12noon.
You are welcome whether you are a regular church goer or you’ve never set foot inside a church before; whether you consider yourself to be a person of (any) faith or not. Come in (wearing a face mask please) and someone will help you to light a candle.
Here at St Mary’s we’re going to be telling the Christmas story in the windows of our homes, and building a stable outside church. We can’t sing carols together but we can listen to them – and on our Facebook page there will be videos and live services.
This post was written by Rev Lindsey Pearson
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