CHURCH OF IRELAND NOTES
For Saturday 15 May 1999
From: The
RCB Library
Email: RCB Library
General Synod meets in Dublin
From Tuesday until Thursday the annual meeting of the General Synod
will be held in the Royal Hospital, Kilmainham. On Monday at 8.00 p.m.
there will, as is customary, be a special Evensong on the eve of the
Synod, in St Patrick's Cathedral where the preacher will be the Bishop
of Meath and Kildare, Dr Richard Clarke.
The legislative
programme for the Synod includes provisions for the use of the
Revised Common Lectionary, improvements in pensions for bishops and
bishops' widows, and some reform in the membership of general vestries,
while the special presentation this year will be from the Christian
Unity Committee.
Among the reports which will be considered will be those on synodical
reform, ministerial breakdown and liturgical revision although it seems
inevitable that the report of the Sub Committee on
Sectarianism will command most attention.
However, despite new initiatives and occasional controversies the
General Synod is, in essence, a review of the Church's work over the
past year. Much of this is routine and unremarkable but no less valuable
for that and the Book of Reports for 1999 is, as always, a chronicle of
dedication by a relatively small Christian community determined, within
the confines of its all too evident humanity, to be faithful to the will
of God.
Today (Saturday) the Dublin and Glendalough GFS Festival Service will
be held in Redcross Church where the preacher will be the Archbishop of
Dublin, Dr Walton Empey.
Tomorrow (Sunday) RTE will broadcast Morning Service from St
Phillip's Church, Milltown, Dublin, where the preacher will be Dr Raj
Rajkumar, a CMSI mission partner working in India. Dr Rajkumar, who will
be in Ireland until 21 June, will be receiving further training in the
Coombe Hospital and will undertake preaching engagements in Lucan,
Arklow, Ballybrack and Clondalkin. Details of his work, requests to
speak and offers of accommodation should be directed to the Dublin
office of CMSI (01-4970931).
In the Chapel of Trinity College, Dublin, the preacher at the Sung
Eucharist will be the distinguished theologian, the Revd Dr Gabriel Daly
OSA, while in Wexford the Ferns Diocesan Choral Festival Service will be
held in St Iberius' Church. In Portiuncula Hospital, Ballinasloe the
Bishop of Limerick and Killaloe, the Rt. Revd Edward Darling, will
commission the Revd Sue Watterson as project leader of the Clonfert
based Christian Training Institute's "Listening Skills"
programme which is under the auspices of the Acorn Healing Trust.
The Trinity Monday Service of Commemoration and Thanksgiving will be
held in the College Chapel where the sermon will be preached by the
theologian and broadcaster, the Revd Dr Leslie Griffiths, sometime
President of the English Methodist Conference.
On Tuesday the the lunchtime lecture in Christ Church Cathedral,
Dublin, in the "Irish
Cathedrals in the Middle Ages" series will be given by Dr Alan
Fletcher from UCD, while in the evening the AGM of CMS Ireland will be
held in Holy Trinity Church, Rathmines where the speaker will be the
newly appointed President of CMS, Lady Gill Brentford. The annual three
day Summer Festival in St Stephen's Church, Dublin, begins. The
programme will include lunchtime organ recitals by students from the
Royal Irish Academy of Music and a lecture on Friday evening by
Professor Michael McCarthy from the Department of the History of Art in
UCD.
In St Nicholas' Collegiate Church on Wednesday there will be a
service for all the schools in Galway at which prayers will be offered
for the plight of Kosovo. The Bishop of Galway will give the blessing.
On Friday the Armagh Church Choral Union Festival Service will be
held in St Patrick's Cathedral while in Christ Church Cathedral, Dublin
the lunchtime organ recital will be by David Adams.
Church of Ireland Notes appear in the Irish
Times whose web site may be found at
http://www.ireland.com/ |
