22 September 2013

A busy Sunday in Christ Church Cathedral

Evening shadows in the South Transept in Christ Church Cathedral, Dublin, after a busy Sunday (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2013)

Patrick Comerford

I have been absent from Christ Church Cathedral, Dublin, on Sundays for almost two months – attending two ordinations in Belfast on successive Sundays, eight days in Crete before that, and taking Sunday services in Saint Ann’s, Dawson Street, and Tullow Parish Church, Carrickmines.

So it was good to back in Christ Church Cathedral today – and what a busy day it was too.

Canon John Bartlett presided at the Cathedral Eucharist this morning, and the preacher was Archbishop Walton Empey. Canon Bartlett, who is a former Precentor of the Cathedral and former Professor of Pastor Theology in Trinity College Dublin, was the Principal of the Church of Ireland Theological College, when I went there to train for ordination in 1999. Archbishop Walton Empey was my ordaining bishop when I was ordained deacon in 2000 and priest in 2001.

The setting was Franz Schubert’s Mass in G, sung by the Cathedral Choir, the Girl Choristers and students of the Christ Church Choral Mentoring Scheme.

After a reception in the crypt, and coffee in the Silk Road Cafe in the Chester Beatty Library in Dublin Castle, I was back in the cathedral this afternoon for the ordination of five deacons by Archbishop Michael Jackson: from the Dioceses of Dublin and Glendalough, the Revd Eugene Griffin, for Rathfarnham Parish, the Revd David Bowles for Taney Parish, the Revd Linda Frost for Howth, and the Revd Ian Horner for Greystones, Co Wicklow; and from the Diocese of Meath and Kildare, the Revd Trevor Holmes for the Parish of Julianstown, Co Meath.

The preacher was Canon Aisling Shine of Drumcondra and North Strand, and the setting was Harold Darke’s Communion Service in F, sung by the Cathedral Choir, while the Litany was .sung by the Revd Jack Kinkead of Taney Parish.

The new semester for full-time students begins in earnest tomorrow morning. Although the temperatures today remained in the mid-20s, with bright warm sunshine and blue skies giving us a lingering summer, the summer season is well and truly over, and autumn lies ahead.