Irish Times Notes
Church of Ireland notes from the Irish Times
SPCK Celebrations in Dublin
SPCK (the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge) was founded 300 years ago and will conclude a year of tercentenary celebrations with a major service of thanksgiving in St Patrick's Cathedral, Dublin, tomorrow at 3.15 pm. The preacher at the service will be the Archbishop of Armagh, Dr Robin Eames, who is a vice-patron of SPCK, and President McAleese will attend and take part, as will the Revd Dr Norman Gamble, Rector of Malahide, who is the SPCK Honorary Co-ordinator for Ireland.
SPCK is the oldest of the Anglican mission agencies and has developed a close relationship with most of the other related agencies including the APCK in Ireland. The service in St Patrick's, through the participation of the Association of Missionary Societies in the Church of Ireland (AMS), will acknowledge the achievements of all the mission agencies which have served the Church of Ireland over the last 300 years.
The House of Bishops has declared tomorrow (Sunday) to be a Mission Sunday throughout the Church of Ireland and it is hoped that many parishes will mark the day by using a mission theme in their worship and by seeking to discover more about mission in the contemporary church.
Tomorrow (Sunday) morning the Bishop of Kilmore, the Rt Revd Michael Mayes, will preach in the Chapel of Trinity College, Dublin, while in St Bartholomew's church the Lenten preacher will be the theologian, Mrs Anne Thurston. In Christ Church Cathedral, Dublin, the preacher in the "Faith for a New Millennium" series will be Dr Charles Villa-Vicenzio, Professor of Theology in the University of Cape Town and secretary of the Truth and Justice Commission in South Africa. In the evening, three new canons, the Very Revd Robert Townley, Canon Robert Deane and Canon Patrick Carmody, will be installed in St Patrick's Cathedral, Trim where the Dean is the Very Revd Andrew Furlong.
On Monday the Archbishop of Armagh will be given a Civic Reception by Tipperary South Riding in recognition of his services to peace, reconciliation and ecumenism. The reception will take place in Aras an Chontac, Clonmel.
The Standing Committee of the General Synod and the Representative Church Body will meet on Tuesday in Dublin where the bishops will meet on Wednesday.
On Wednesday the Trinity College "Lectures in Lent" series continues in the Joly Theatre at lunchtime when Mohammed Haji will speak on refugees and asylum seekers. The Dean of Christ Church, Dublin, the Very Revd John Paterson, will be with the Lord Mayor of Dublin's party in San Jose, with which the city and the cathedral are twinned. There will be an ecumenical service in Trinity Episcopal Cathedral on Wednesday and a civic reception on Friday.
The annual Joe Coady Lecture, which memorialises the life and witness of the late Dean's Verger in Christ Church Cathedral, Dublin, will be held in the Cathedral on Wednesday evening at 8.00 pm. The speaker will be Mrs Lesley Whiteside, archivist and historian, who will talk on "The stained glass of Christ Church Cathedral" which is the subject of her latest book. Her full colour Guide to the Stained Glass of Christ Church Cathedral will be launched after the lecture by Dr Nicola Gordon-Bowe from the National College of Art and Design who is the leading expert on the work of Ireland's greatest stained glass artist, Harry Clarke.
In the Lenten series on ethics which has been organized by the churches in Malahide and Portmarnock the speakers on "The Media" will be the Irish Times journalist, Michael Foley, and Dr Colum Kenny who lectures in communications in Dublin City University.