We hope you have had a relaxing and enjoying Christmas.

This Sunday is New Year’s Day, and we are marking it with a combined service at St Andrew’s Anglican Church, Umina at 10am. (So please don’t turn up at St Luke’s Anglican Church, Woy Woy at 10am, or St Andrew’s at 8am!)

This Sunday we will also use to mark the Feast of Epiphany, where we remember the visit of the Magi (aka the Three Kings, or the Wise Men) to Jesus, and how they recognised him as someone deserving of worship. I wonder what questions their worship of Jesus, though they knew so little about him, might inspire in our minds…

We hope to see you on Sunday – 10am, St Andrew’s, Umina

Christmas is a time of hope

Christmas is one of the hightlights of the Christian year. At Christmas we celebrate God’s love for us, shown for us in the fact that God sent Jesus to live on earth with us, to teach us how to live, to die on the cross for our sins, and to rise from death to give us the hope of the resurrection. We can celebrate all of these things because of the events we remember at Christmas time.

This year, our main Christmas services are:

Christmas Eve, 24 December

4:30pm — Crib service

St Luke’s Anglican Church, Woy Woy

6:00pm — Crib service

St Andrew’s Church, Umina

11:30pm — Midnight Mass

St Luke’s Church, Woy Woy

Christmas Day, 25 December

8:00am — Christmas Communion

St Andrew’s Church, Umina

10:00am — Christmas Eucharist

St Luke’s Church, Woy Woy

We hope you will join us at this special time of the Christian year. If you have any questions, please leave a comment below, or contact us.

Members of the “Parish Link” team met for their end-of-year celebration on Sunday 20 November. We enjoyed a great bring-and-share lunch and heard from visiting speaker Elaine Pemble who shared with us on the subject of using hearing aids.

Join us on Sunday 16 October to celebrate St Luke’s Day.

Our church on Blackwall Road is named in honour of ‘Luke the Evangelist’, the person who wrote the second of the gospels (the stories of Jesus Christ’s life, death and resurrection) in the New Testament.

St Luke’s gospel is well-loved, as it has the full nativity story which is often read at Christmas time. His sequel to the life of Jesus is known as the “Acts of the Apostles” and tells the story of the what happened to Jesus’ disciples after he went to heaven. “Acts” is the next book of the Bible after St John’s gospel.

After our 10am service at St Luke’s Church, we will celebrate with a sumptuous morning tea. Please feel free to join us.

Left: Saint Luke, painted by the French artist James Tissot.