Irish Times Notes
Church of Ireland notes from the Irish Times
Almost Christmas
Tomorrow (Sunday), shortly after 3.15 pm in St Patrick's Cathedral, Dublin, the congregation will stand and, after a pause, the silence will be broken by the treble voice of a boy chorister singing the first verse of Once in Royal David City. For many, both those in the cathedral and those who listen year by year on radio, the Festival of Nine Lessons and Carols in St Patrick's brings to an end the season of carol services and announces the beginning of Christmas.
The broadcast is one of the longest running programmes on RTE radio and the popularity of the service is one of the more remarkable contributions of the Church of Ireland to the life of the nation. And yet there is nothing distinctively Irish about the Festival of Nine Lessons and Carols apart perhaps from the opening, for the words of Once in Royal David City were written by Mrs C.F. Alexander, the wife of the William Alexander, Bishop of Derry and subsequently Archbishop of Armagh. The service was the creation of E.W. Benson, Bishop of Truro, in 1880, and was adapted to its present form in 1918 by King's College, Cambridge, whose choir has turned the service into an international event.
But St Patrick's, also, has played a part in broadening the appeal of the service for as early as the 1940s the service sheet carried the injunction, "PLEASE do not take this away until Christmas Eve, then post it to your friends overseas". If the service could not be heard in America, Australia, South Africa or where ever Irish men and women found themselves at Christmastide, the words could be read, the familiar tunes quietly hummed, and fond memories of cold and crisp December evenings in Dublin could be recalled.
Today (Saturday) the choir of St Ann's Church, Dublin, will sing carols in Dawson Street while in Rathfarham there will be carol concerts in the grounds of the parish church.
On Christmas Day the bishops, led by the Archbishop of Armagh and the Archbishop of Dublin, will, by tradition, preach and celebrate the Eucharist in their diocesan cathedrals. In St Patrick's Cathedral, Dublin, Christmas is one of the occasions when the dean preaches and the Very Revd Dr Robert MacCarthy will do so at the Festival Eucharist. At Evensong the choir of St Patrick's will sing the Christmas music from Handel's Messiah. RTE will broadcast a Sung Eucharist from St Bartholomew's Church, Dublin, where the vicar is the Revd William Ritchie, while on RTE television there will be a Christmas Service with carols from Sligo Grammar School led by the Revd John Merrick.
For many in the Church the Christmas break provides a welcome opportunity to catch up on reading. A new book entitled Is it True, by the Bishop of Meath and Kildare, Dr Richard Clarke, has just been published by Dominican Publications and the APCK volume of millennium essays, A Time to Build, edited by the Dean of Raphoe, Stephen White, offers stimulating reading. Christ Church Cathedral, Dublin. A History, edited by Kenneth Milne, ought to appeal to all who are interested in the history of the Church while aspects of the more recent past are evoked in a collection of sermons by the former Dean of St Patrick's, Maurice Stewart. As always there is a new edition of the Church of Ireland Directory, once again case bound and with a striking royal blue dust jacket. It is available from the RE Resource Centre Holy Trinity Church, Church Avenue, Rathmines, Dublin 6 at £8.50 plus £1.80 postage.