Irish Times Notes
Church of Ireland notes from the Irish Times
The Church Prepares for Easter
Today (Saturday), tomorrow (Sunday), Palm Sunday, and through Holy Week there will be a series of events, both traditional and contemporary, which will prepare the Church to celebrate the resurrection on Easter Day.
In St Patrick's Cathedral, Dublin, at 8.00 pm tonight (Saturday) there will be a performance of Arvo Part's Passio (The Passion according to St John) by the Guinness Choir with Colm Carey at the organ.
RTE will broadcast a Sung Eucharist for Palm Sunday, celebrated by the Revd Dermot Dunne, with the Girls' Choir of Christ Church Cathedral, Dublin, In Christ Church Palm Sunday will be marked by a liturgy which includes the blessing and distribution of palms in the old cloister area followed by a procession of clergy, choir and congregation into the cathedral to the strains of the anthem Hosanna to the Son of David. Music will also be to the fore in St Patrick's Cathedral, Dublin, where, at 3.15 pm, there will be a performance by the Cathedral Choir of Stainer's Crucifixion to mark the centenary of the composer's death. The evening devotion in St Fin Barre's Cathedral, Cork, will take the form of a performance of Eric Thiman's The Imitations of Christ by the St Michael's Choir.
During Holy Week a number of the bishops will perform preaching engagements in parishes throughout the country. The Bishop of Meath and Kildare, Dr Richard Clark, will preach in Taney while Dr Richard Henderson, the Bishop of Tuam, will be in Rathfarnham. The Bishop of Cork, the Rt Revd Paul Colton, will preach in Monkstown, Co. Dublin, while the Bishop of Down, the Rt Revd Harold Miller, a former Rector of Carrigrohane, will return to the Diocese of Cork to preach in Bandon. The Bishop of Kilmore, the Rt Revd Ken Clarke, will give lunchtime talks in St Mary's Cathedral, Sligo on Wednesday and Thursday.
On Tuesday, at 8.00 pm, Bach's St John's Passion will be performed in Christ Church Cathedral, Dublin, by Christ Church Baroque and the Cathedral Choir. In Christ Church on Maundy Thursday, at noon, the Archbishop of Dublin, Dr Walton Empey, will bless the oil of healing and the diocesan clergy will re-affirm their ordination vows and at The Maundy Eucharist, at 6.00 pm, there will be an act of footwashing.
One of the more contemporary Holy Week experiences has been organized by the chaplain of Trinity College, Dublin, Dr Alan McCormack. Under the title "Faith in the Arts - the Aspiration of Genius" the Palm Sunday procession will be enlivened by five canvases by the New Zealand artist, Kelvin Mann. There will be experimental theatre and music on Monday and Tuesday respectively, while on Wednesday the ancient the Office of Tenebrae will be given a contemporary resonance by video tableaux by the artist, Julanne Clark-Morris, who has recently had an installation in the crypt of Christ Church Cathedral.
On Good Friday in St Patrick's Cathedral, Dublin, the Liturgy of Good Friday and Preaching the Cross will be led by the Bishop of Lancaster, the Rt Revd S.G. Pedley, and at 8.30 pm there will be a performance of Mozart's Requiem by the Hibernian Orchestra and the Goethe Institut Choir.
The parish of Castleknock, where the rector is the Revd Andrew Orr, will launch a parish website tomorrow (Sunday) the address of which is http://www.castleknock.dublin.anglican.org.
On Tuesday evening, in Foxrock Community Centre, the Foxrock Local History Club will host a lecture by Dr Raymond Gillespie, from the Department of Modern History in NUI-Maynooth, on "The Reformation at Christ Church".