{"id":8064,"date":"2013-01-13T13:03:56","date_gmt":"2013-01-13T12:03:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.abingdonblog.co.uk\/?p=8064"},"modified":"2013-01-13T13:03:56","modified_gmt":"2013-01-13T12:03:56","slug":"blessing-of-the-waters-of-the-river-thames","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.abingdonblog.co.uk\/?p=8064","title":{"rendered":"Blessing of the Waters of the River Thames"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.abingdonblog.co.uk\/imag13\/13011301.jpg\" alt=\"Blessing of the Waters\" \/><br \/>\nThis morning St Helen&#8217;s Church began their 10:30 am service on St Helen&#8217;s Wharf. The service was the &#8220;Blessing of the Waters &amp; festival of the Baptism of Christ&#8221;. The Blessing of the waters is an ancient tradition but this could be the first time it has been done beside the River Thames in Abingdon.<br \/>\n<img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.abingdonblog.co.uk\/imag13\/13011303.jpg\" alt=\"Blessing of the Waters\" \/><br \/>\nThe service began with the congregation gathered on the wharf. They were then joined by the officiants and choir processing with the cross.<br \/>\n<img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.abingdonblog.co.uk\/imag13\/13011305.jpg\" alt=\"Blessing of the Waters\" \/><br \/>\nThe Rector then greeted everybody&#8230; &#8220;<em>Dear Friends in Christ, we gather today to celebrate the Baptism of Christ&#8230;<\/em>&#8221;<br \/>\n<img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.abingdonblog.co.uk\/imag13\/13011314.jpg\" alt=\"Blessing of the Waters\" \/><br \/>\nAfter a hymn, some prayers, and bible readings, water was brought up from the River Thames and poured into the holy water bucket and then carried back to the church for the rest of the service.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>This morning St Helen&#8217;s Church began their 10:30 am service on St Helen&#8217;s Wharf. The service was the &#8220;Blessing of the Waters &amp; festival of the Baptism of Christ&#8221;. The Blessing of the waters is an ancient tradition but this could be the first time it has been done beside the River Thames in Abingdon. [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[33,133],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8064","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-ceremony","category-religion"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.abingdonblog.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8064","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.abingdonblog.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.abingdonblog.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.abingdonblog.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.abingdonblog.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=8064"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.abingdonblog.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8064\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.abingdonblog.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=8064"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.abingdonblog.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=8064"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.abingdonblog.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=8064"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}