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A spiritual comment and prayer to begin the day with Canon Rachel Mann

Good morning.

I suspect I am not alone in finding this time of year a little challenging. For me, it’s the lack of light and the shortness of the days. Today, is the winter solstice, the shortest day of the year. In London, the shortest day offers just eight hours of daylight; that’s nearly nine hours shorter than the longest day. The brevity of daylight simply makes me want to hibernate until the spring.

Perhaps the sheer lack of light and the length of the nights is one reason why the Solstice has long been connected in the northern hemisphere with religious festivals. In Rome, Saturnalia took place around the time of Solstice and, in early medieval England, the Venerable Bede asserted that the Solstice was a major festival for people from Scandinavia. In Iran, there is the tradition of Yalda Night, when friends gather to eat, drink and read poetry on the longest night of the year. It is perhaps unsurprising that Christmas as a festival which celebrates Jesus as the Light of the World should become associated too with the arrival of the Solstice.

The world 'solstice' comes from the Latin solstitium meaning 'Sun stands still'. I rather like the poetry of that phrase. It indicates that at solstice we come to the still turning point of the year. The sun, on which we all depends, seemingly stops and then at the winter solstice the world begins to open up again and the days grow longer till spring comes. For Christians, of course, Jesus is the still turning point of the world. He is ‘the sun of righteousness.’ For all of us, though, solstice signals both the darkest day and the promise of brighter days to come.

God of light, illumine our paths today. Lead us into hope, promise and joy. Show us the way ahead.

Amen.