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Advent

Advent means ‘coming’ and is the special four-week period leading up to Christmas. It is a time to prepare for the celebration of Jesus’s birth but also for his coming in glory at the end of time.

Bishop

‘Bishop’ comes from the Greek word for ‘overseer’. So a bishop is a senior Christian minister authorised to have oversight for God’s people. As well as duties given to deacons and priests, bishops confirm and ordain.

Home News Bishop publishes Advent book

Bishop publishes Advent book

Provincial news Posted: 27 August 2021

The Bishop of St Asaph has written and illustrated a new book telling the stories of all the characters and creatures in the Christmas story.

An Advent Book of Days: Meeting the Characters of Christmas includes daily prayers and reflections for Advent based on each character’s experiences. Bishop Gregory Cameron has created the full colour illustrations for this book, which combines the Bible, history, art and legend to explore the story of the incarnation.

Bishop Gregory who is a calligrapher, icon writer and coin designer for the Royal Mint, says, "This book is intended to introduce the stories often in the background of the traditional Christmas crib. It was one of the fruits of my sabbatical in 2019, which seems a long time ago now. I’ve always loved the riches of the Christmas story, and the legends that surround the Biblical accounts. I’ve tried to share all I’ve learned in this little volume.”

For each day of Advent, the book introduces a character caught up in the drama of the nativity, from the archangel Gabriel to the ox and ass in the stable. The book unpacks what their portrayal in scripture reveals about them, how they have been understood in history, what folk legends have accrued around them, and what their stories offer for faith and devotion today.

The book is inspired in the style of visio divina the medieval tradition of the illuminated book of hours. It is described by the publishers as “a book to engage all the senses and the imagination, to be enjoyed slowly and to shed new light on the most famous and familiar story of all”.

Bishop Gregory adds, “It is my hope that these reflections, whenever they are read, will help us to discover new depths in the Christmas story, to deepen our faith, and perhaps even to learn something new or unexpected; because over two thousand years, the story of Christmas has become filled with unexpected delights arising from Scripture, history, legend and faith.”