Thought For The Day – Monday 15^th December 2025

Today sees the first of our two Advent and Christmas services at Saint Michael’s Church.

After having an early lunch, Years 8, 9, and 10 will register in “the cage” multi-games area, and respectfully walk down to Saint Michael’s Church.

Students should bring a coat and, if they can afford, and wish, a donation to the work of the church in the local community.

The services present an opportunity to thoughtfully reflect on our lives, and that of the world, past, present, and future.

The theme of the services will be caring, and loving, communication.

From a Christian perspective, this theme connects with God communicating with the world through the light, love, and peace of Jesus Christ. Christians believe Jesus Christ was:  “The Word Made Flesh:  Divine Communication in Human Form”.

As well as engaging with readings, and reflecting in prayer,  staff, and students will be invited to participate in the singing of the following carols and hymns: “Once in Royal David’s City”,  “O Come, All Ye Faithful”, “Hark! The Herald Angels Sing”, and “Like A Candle Flame”.

“Like A Candle Flame” staff and students will recognise as a choir piece from previous years.

Light is, of course, a symbol of Advent and Christmas. For Christians, this represents Jesus Christ.

And Light is also a very important, and safe, symbol, both in these winter months, and in our very challenging world as a whole.

Light represents care, compassion, goodness, help, hope, kindness, and love.

The symbol of Light also very much connects to the Jewish Festival of Hanukkah, or Chanukah, which commenced yesterday evening in the U.K.,  and lasts for eight days.

This festival, which literally means “Rededication”, remembers the time when the Jews reclaimed the Temple of God from King Antiochus (who had put a statue of himself in the Temple, stole the holy lamp and declared Judaism, and reading of the Torah, and the Hebrew Bible,  illegal).   After reclamation, a lamp was lit in the Temple, as a symbol of God’s presence, which miraculously burnt for eight days on just one day’s worth of oil.

Jews celebrate Hanukkah with food, like latkes (a potato fritter), pancakes, and doughnuts, as well as presents, and games like dreidel.

Jews also will light a Menorah, called a Hanukkiah, where eight lights represent the eight days of the festival and the ninth light, “the helper”, symbolically lights all the others. This represents the importance of spreading Light to other people and the world.

How will we spread Care, Compassion, Goodness, Help, Hope, Light and Love to others, at this time of the year, and beyond?