Irish Times Notes
Church of Ireland Notes from The Irish Times
Busy Weekend in the Theological College
The Church of Ireland Theological College will be the venue this weekend for the first study residence of 2004 for ordinands who are in training for the auxiliary ministry. There are, presently, twenty-six auxiliary ordinands from all parts of the country and they come together on a number of weekends with some fifty lay students who are studying for the Foundation Certificate in Liturgy and Worship.
This is a new course for the training of parish readers within the dioceses of Dublin and Glendalough and has proved very popular, being almost immediately over-subscribed. Various modules of the new certificate course also form a part-time requirement for diocesan lay readers and for organists who are taking the Archbishop?s Certificate in Church Music.
The groups who are meeting in Braemor Park this weekend will attend seminars on theology, liturgy and music by the Principal of the Theological College, the Revd Professor Adrian Empey, the Revd Tom Gordon and Mr Mark Duley. All the groups will combine for a liturgical practice using new resources from the Royal School of Church Music with which the musicianship modules of the course are linked. The Archbishop of Dublin will preside at the course eucharist and the preacher will be Ms Ruth Gill, a second year student from the auxiliary ministry course.
Such weekends offer opportunities which combine lay and ordained formation for ministry. The Co-Ordinator of the Auxiliary Ministry is the Revd Tom Gordon who has also initiated, and directs, the Foundation Certificate in Liturgy and Worship.
In association with the Octave of Prayer for Christian Unity, a number of special services have been arranged. Tomorrow (Sunday) morning the Rector of Glenageary, the Ven Gordon Linney, will exchange pulpits with the Fr Andrew Pyka from Our Lady of Victories Church, Sallynoggin, while at Evensong in St Patrick?s Cathedral, Dublin, the preacher will be the Revd Mary Hunter, from Christ Church Presbyterian Church, Rathgar. In Cashel Cathedral, the preacher will be Fr John Littleton, President of the National Conference of Priests in Ireland, and the choir will be made up from members of the different Christian denominations in Cashel. On Wednesday evening the President of the Methodist Church will preach in St Macartan?s Cathedral, Clogher. In Dublin, on Friday evening, Cumann Gaelach na hEaglaise and Pobal an Aifrinn will hold an interdenominational service of prayer and music in Irish in Christ Church Cathedral where the preacher will be Fr Leo O Giollain SJ., while at St Patrick?s Church, Monkstown, the Rector of Rathfarnham, the Revd Ted Woods, will speak to the Ecumenical Society of the Blessed Virgin Mary on the ?Ferns Initiative on Inter-Church Marriage and Pastoral Care?.
Tomorrow (Sunday) morning in the Chapel of Trinity College, Dublin, the first in a series of lecture sermons for Hilary term will be given at the Sung Eucharist. The preacher on the general theme, ?On the Human Condition?, will be Mr Joseph O?Gorman, Treasurer of the DU Central Societies Committee. In the evening in St Bartholomew?s Church, Ballsbridge, there will be an Epiphanytide Carol Service with the Girls? Choir directed by Malcolm Wisner.
On Monday at 1.00 pm a new series of Healing Services will begin in St George?s Church, Belfast, under the auspices of the Divine Healing Ministeries, which is coordinated by Brother David Jardine.. A short service of Holy Communion, with a guest speaker, will be followed by prayer and the laying on of hands. The first speaker in the series will be Fr Ken Brady, former Superior of Ardoyne Monastery.
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