Irish Times Notes
Church of Ireland Notes from 'The Irish Times'
Saturday 27 March 2010
Holy Week Music and Liturgy
Tomorrow (Sunday) is Palm Sunday which ushers in a week of intense liturgical and musical activity which reaches its climax on Easter Day.
This afternoon (Sunday) in Dublin there will be services of music and readings in both Christ Church and St Patrick’s cathedrals while at 5.30pm in Whitechurch, Co. Dublin, the Parish Adult and Junior ‘Echo Voices, directed by John and Ashling Dexter, will sing Stainer’s Crucifixion.
On Tuesday at 8pm in St Nicholas’ Collegiate Church, Galway, and again on Wednesday in the Church of St Nicholas of Myra, Francis Street, Dublin, the choir, Resurgam, directed by Mark Duley, will sing the Lamentations of Jeremiah with setting by Brumel, White, Tallis and Palestrina.. The Callino Quartet will perform Hayden’s ‘Seven Last Words of Our Saviour on the Cross’ in St Mary’s Cathedral, Tuam, on Wednesday evening.
During Holy Week the Bishop of Tuam will be in Westport while the Bishop of Cashel & Ossory will spend the week among the people of the Baltinglass and Kiltegan groups of parishes. In St Fin Barre’s Cathedral, Cork the guest preacher will be the Revd Dr Richard Clutterbuck, Principal of Edgehill Theological College, Belfast, which is the training centre for the Methodist Church in Ireland. The Church of Ireland and Methodist churches are continuing to develop their covenant relationship with, in particular, a concentration on the interchangeability of ministry and oversight. Another welcome sign of ecumenical activity was the decision of the Danish Church, in December 2009, to sign the Porvoo Common Statement. From this has emerged an invitation to the Bishop of Clogher to preach in Roskilde, near Copenhagen, during Holy Week. This is a ‘first’ under the newly emerging dispensation of reciprocity.
On Thursday and Friday there will be a dramatic retelling of the Passion set in and around St Werburgh’s Church, in Dublin’s Castle Street. On Maunday Thursday the last Supper and Betrayal will be enacted in the church and graveyard and on Good Friday the Way of the Cross street drama begins on the steps of St Weburgh’s and works its way through the streets to Dublin Castle where the crucifixion will be re-enacted.
On Good Friday the Three Hour Service in St Ann’s’ Church, Dublin, beginning at noon, will be led by Canon Kenneth Kearon, Secretary General of the Anglican Communion, while in St Patrick’s Cathedral, Dublin, the preacher at the Good Friday services will be the former Bishop of Cork, the Rt Revd Roy Warke.
Tomorrow morning (Sunday) the Revd Peter Owen Jones, best known for his BBC series ‘Around the World in 80 Faiths’ and ‘Extreme Faiths’ will be the preacher at the Sung Eucharist in the Chapel of Trinity College, Dublin. At Evensong in St Anne’s Cathedral, Belfast, the Revd Wilfred Orr, a Presbyterian, and the Revd Ivan McElhinney, a Methodist, will be welcomed as the first ecumenical canons on the cathedral chapter.
On Tuesday evening at 7.30pm Tony Jordan, author of The Good Samaritans, will give a talk in Dublin’s Mansion House to mark the 40th anniversary of the Dublin Samaritans. The title of the talk, ‘The Canon and the Archbishop: Billy Wynne, John Charles McQuaid and the Foundation of the Dublin Samaritans in 1970’ acknowledges the pivotal role played by the then Rector of Monkstown and subsequent Rector of St Ann’s, Canon RWM Wynne. The event has been organized by Dublin City Archives and further details may be had from cityarchives@dublincity.ie