Praying through Stir-up Sunday and Advent

Part of: Words for the Word: Advent in prayers, psalms and preaching

In this series of three ONLINE talks Exeter Cathedral's three Canon Theologians will explore some liturgical responses to the Advent and Christmas seasons. We will introduce some new texts and will share some new perspectives on familiar ones.

Come and join us for one talk or all three, as we learn about and reflect on some beautiful seasonal words for the Word!

Benjamin Williams – Vicar of Barnstaple, Lecturer at Oxford University, and a Canon Theologian at Exeter Cathedral – takes a look at how a treasure of Western spirituality, the Collect, developed through the Middle Ages and English Reformation, as this is illustrated in items from the Exeter Cathedral Library's Special Collections. Focussing on the series of Advent collects that begin "Excita!" – "Stir up!" – we'll begin with the prayers and musical notation in the Library's beautiful twelfth-century Missal, and trace the collects' history to the copy of the 1552 Book of Common Prayer that shows the collect that gave the Sunday next before Advent its popular name – "Stir up Sunday".

Tickets are FREE but please book to receive a Zoom link to attend.