First Vespers of Christmas

Well, the decorations are out, we're well rested, now it's time to get started on Christmas.  At the monastery, Christmas starts with First Vespers.  All I can say after going though it is wow... what a service.  First Vespers of Christmas starts out with a service of light with the chapel slightly dark and all the candles being lit in silence.  We then proceed to sing the psalms as during a normal vesper service - there were lots of people there and the singing seemed more intense.  Of, course, being a feast day, we had incense as well.  (I'm sorry I don't have photos, but even I have my limits as to when I'm going to fire off a camera.)

After singing the psalms, there was a hymn and then a procession around behind the front of the church - part of the monastic enclosure - and to the Creche display in the back of the chapel.  (I'm sure the space behind the front of the church has some sort of official fancy Latin name, like curveium spaceorium - I'll trust Br. Bernard to supply it to us in a comment.)  Once we were all at the Creche, there was a brief blessing and then people had a chance to pray or meditate in the chapel or by the Creche.  (I came back after people left to take these photographs.)

I helped set up the Creche and learned that the artists were two long-term guests who stayed at the monastery for a while, paying their way by providing art (nowdays they're quite well known in the liturgical art world).  It is all from recycled wood found around the area and it is really stunning.  If you look closely at the photo above, you'll notice that the wise men are missing.  They are traveling by camel... I happen to know that they are way off in the distance in the Chapter House and will mysteriously make their way to the Creche over the next 12 days, somehow arriving just in time for the feast of Epiphany.