This year the Fifth Day of Christmas coincides with the First Sunday after Christmas. The Gospel reading for this day - Matthew 2:13-23 - ends with the return of the Holy Family to Israel:
But when Herod died, behold, an angel of the Lord appeared in a dream to Joseph in Egypt, saying, "Rise, take the child and his mother to the land of Israel, for those who sought the child's life are dead." And he rose and took the child and his mother and went to the land of Israel. But when he heard Archelaus was reigning over Judea in place of his father Herod, he was afraid to go there, and being warned in a dream he withdrew to the district of Galilee. And he went and lived in a city called Nazareth, so that what was spoken by the prophets might be fulfilled, that he would be called a Nazarene.
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| The Holy Family Salvadore Dali, 1959 |
Music for the day is a chorus from Ralph Vaughan Williams's Christmas cantata, "Hodie," written in 1954.
The blessed son of God only
In a crib full poor did lie;
With our poor flesh and our poor blood
Was clothed that everlasting good.
Kyrieleison.
The Lord Christ Jesu, God's son dear,
Was a guest and a stranger here;
Us for to bring from misery,
That we might live eternally.
Kyrieleison.
All this did he for us freely,
For to declare his great mercy;
All Christendom be merry therefore,
And give him thanks for evermore.
Kyrieleison.
The quote from the Gospel of Matthew is taken from the English Standard Version published in 2001.
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