Diocesan News05 Mar 25

Lent 2025 at Belfast Cathedral

Please join us in marking Lent 2025 at Belfast Cathedral.

You are invited journey with Jesus towards the cross this Lent by making time to pray, worship or join our Lent Study of St Paul’s 1st Letter to the Thessalonians.

Lent begins on Ash Wednesday 5th March, when we remember our limitedness and turn to God for forgiveness and life.

On Ash Wednesday you are welcome to worship with us as follows:

• 9:30am – Ash Wednesday Morning Prayer in the Chapel of the Holy Spirit

• 1pm – Lunchtime traditional Language Holy Communion for Ash Wednesday in the Chapel of Unity, with optional Imposition of Ashes

• 7:30pm – Choral Eucharist for Ash Wednesday with the optional impostition of Ashes. This service of communion will feature the Cathedral Choir singing the William Byrd Mass for Four Voices, and Allegri’s hauntingly beautiful Miserere mei, Deus. The Litany will be sung to a new setting by our Master of Music, Jack Wilson, and music for the Motet, Ubi Charitas, is also composed by Jack Wilson. The Ash Wednesday reflection will be given by Revd Dr Ron Elsdon.

We very much hope that you will find a way to start this Lent which will speak to your heart and soul, helping us to reflect on the greatness of God’s mercy.

Following from Ash Wednesday, we invite you to make our weekday cathedral services part of your Lent discipline this year.

Please join us at 9.30am, Tuesday to Fridays, for morning prayers (Holy Communion on Tuesdays) in the stunningly beautiful Chapel of the Holy Spirit. This has been a place for silent and shared prayer at the entrance to our cathedral for generations of people from the city of Belfast.

If you are in the city at lunchtime, then please join us for our simple Lunchtime Prayers at 1pm. These are held in the Nave of the cathedral, and give those working in the city, or those who are visitors from around the world, a space and place to pause in God’s presence. Please do join us if you can.

And finally, please chose to join us on Thursdays in Lent,  for our Lent Communion and Bible Study.

A shortened service of Communion will start at 1pm. We will then take a break for refreshments, around 1.45pm. Then we shall share in a led bible study for each of the Thursdays in Lent.

Taking time to study St Paul’s earliest epistle, we shall work our way through Paul’s First Letter to the Thessalonians, with a consideration of the text, followed by some group discussion.

We plan to be finished by 2.45pm

The schedule across the Thursdays of this Lent will be:

• 6 March – 1 Thessalonians Chapter 1 – Introduction with the Dean
• 13 March – 1 Thessalonians 2:1–15 – Led by Canon Raymond Fox
• 20 March – 1 Thessalonians 2:17–3:13 – Led by Dr Ron Elsdon
• 27 March – 1 Thessalonians 4:1–17 Led by Trevor Burke
• 3 April – 1 Thessalonians 5:1–11 – Led by Rev Cameron Mack
• 10 April – 1 Thessalonians 5:12–28 – Led by the Dean

Lent is always a time to pause, to reflect, to grow in our faith and in our journey with Christ. We hope that this Lent, at Belfast Cathedral, you will find time and space to grow in prayer, understanding and commitment as we grow closer to God and to Jesus.

Throughout the season of Lent, our Lenten Services of Choral Evensong, sung by the cathedral choir, are held at 5.30pm on Fridays. And on each Sunday all are invited to share our Lenten Choral Eucharist at 11.00am, with Sunday Choral Evensong starting at 3.30pm.

In addition, you are always welcome to find God in the silence of our cathedral, which is open Monday–Friday (and Sundays) between 10:30am and 4pm. The Chapel of the Holy Spirit is always free for you to slip in and pray, and chaplains are on duty to pray with you on Monday afternoons.

‘As a father has compassion on his children,
so is the Lord merciful towards those who fear him.
For he knows of what we are made;
he remembers that we are but dust.’

– Psalm 103:13–14