Advent is the name given to the 4 weeks before Christmas. It is a time of preparation and a time of waiting. But we are not good at waiting. In fact, whatever we can do to avoid it – taking a shortcut, driving to work at an unsocial hour, buying online, paying for speedy boarding, whatever it is…we are there and doing it.

But Advent is about making a virtue out of the waiting, it is about really doing it well. It's about looking for God and hoping for God, and waiting for God, …when God's presence, his promises, his embrace of our world, is often ambiguous. And that is part of our human life. To live in this intermediate world, neither Heaven nor Hell, neither all good nor all bad, with its contradictions, its frustrations, its moments of absolute pain and its moments of absolute glory.

So we wait…because we don’t yet know. We don’t get the big picture. We don’t get God’s vision. We only see a tiny bit. The waiting is where we deal with all the things we don’t know about God - what theologians call the “epistemological distance”, that gap of knowing, between creature and creator, between the object and the subject, between the human and the divine. That part of us that only sees bits, pieces, the mess on the back of the tapestry and not the beautiful picture on the other side.

And it is at Advent that we can cultivate that discipline. A time to put a check on our rush to the happy ending, a time to hear the angel’s message, a time to abide in the fields, a time to follow a star, a time to wait on God. “Now, we see only in part”, wrote St Paul. “We see in a mirror darkly”. And while we do, we bide our time. We wait.

A Sung Eucharist takes place every Sunday at 11.00am. After the service there is a time of fellowship when refreshments are served outside the church.

Celebrate Christmas this year with our Service of Nine Lessons and Carols at St George's. This annual carol service follows the pattern of carols and readings set by Kings College in Cambridge.

Music will be provided by the Pueri Cantores Málaga choir. The choir, which trains young people in musical and choral skills, was formed in Málaga in 2014.

The service will be followed by mulled wine and mince pies.

You are very welcome to come and join in the celebration!

Other Carol Services across the Chaplaincy:
- Fri 8th December 6pm, Salinas Church
- Sun 17th December 6pm, Velez-Malaga

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We are a small friendly ZOOM congregation, quite relaxed and we share out the tasks of readings, prayers, etc.

We started the ZOOM service when COVID forced us to close our churches. We then met every Sunday. When the Churches finally reopened at the beginning of 2022, we switched to a monthly service.

You are very welcome to join us next last Tuesday of the month. The service begins at 10.30am and you can join via ZOOM from 10.20am.

If you'd like to join in, contact Peter Read: [email protected].

NB Last Tuesday of the month EXCEPT Christmas, when this year it is on the 19th December.