Readings for the Feast of the Holy Innocents (the First Sunday of Christmas) - 28th December 2025

Collect for the Feast of the Holy Innocents

Heavenly Father, whose children suffered at the hands of Herod, though they had done no wrong; by the suffering of your Son and by the innocence of our lives frustrate all evil designs and establish your reign of justice and peace; through Jesus Christ your Son our Lord, who is alive and reigns with you, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever.

Amen

Collect for the First Sunday of Christmas

Almighty God, who wonderfully created us in your own image and yet more wonderfully restored us through your Son Jesus Christ; grant that as he came to share in our humanity, so we may share the life of his divinity; who is alive and reigns with you, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever.

Amen

A reading from the book of the prophet Jeremiah, chapter 31, verses 15 to 17

Thus says the LORD: “A voice is heard in Ramah, lamentation and bitter weeping.

Rachel is weeping for her children; she refuses to be comforted for her children,

because they are not.” Thus says the LORD: “Keep your voice from weeping, and your

eyes from tears; for your work shall be rewarded, says the LORD, and they shall come

back from the land of the enemy. There is hope for your future, says the LORD, and

your children shall come back to their own country.

A reading from the first letter of Paul to the Corinthians, chapter 1, verses 26 to 29

Consider your own call, brothers and sisters: not many of you were wise by human

standards, not many were powerful, not many were of noble birth. But God chose what

is foolish in the world to shame the wise; God chose what is weak in the world to shame

the strong; God chose what is low and despised in the world, things that are not, to

reduce to nothing things that are, so that no one might boast in the presence of God.

A reading from the gospel according to Matthew, chapter 2, verses 13 to 18

Now after the wise men had left, an angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream

and said, ‘Get up, take the child and his mother, and flee to Egypt, and remain there

until I tell you; for Herod is about to search for the child, to destroy him.’ Then

Joseph got up, took the child and his mother by night, and went to Egypt, and remained

there until the death of Herod. This was to fulfil what had been spoken by the Lord

through the prophet, ‘Out of Egypt I have called my son.’ When Herod saw that he had

been tricked by the wise men, he was infuriated, and he sent and killed all the children

in and around Bethlehem who were two years old or under, according to the time that

he had learned from the wise men. Then was fulfilled what had been spoken through

the prophet Jeremiah: ‘A voice was heard in Ramah, wailing and loud lamentation,

Rachel weeping for her children; she refused to be consoled, because they are no

more.’

Second Collect for the First Sunday of Christmas

Heavenly Father, whose blessed Son shared at Nazareth the life of an earthly home: help your Church to live as one family; united in love and obedience and bring us all at last to our home in heaven; through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Amen

NB – The readings for the First Sunday of Christmas are Isaiah 63, 7 to 9;

Hebrews 2. 10 to 18; Matthew 2, 13 to 23