The winter issue of Search. A Church of Ireland Journal, which is edited by the Dean of Raphoe, Dr Stephen White, has been published and is available from the Religious Education Resource Centre, Holy Trinity Church, Church Avenue, Rathmines, Dublin 6.
Two of the articles deal with contemporary pastoral and ethical issues. The Rev Tom Gordon, director of the extramural programme in the Theological College, and a practising counsellor, discusses the issues surrounding the care of those with HIV and AIDS, while Canon Jack Watson, formerly rector of Arva in Co Cavan, writes about the growing concern for an ethical approach to the animal kingdom.
In the historical sphere, the Rev Dr W.G. Neely, convenor of the Church of Ireland Historical Society, introduces readers to the 19th-century periodical, the Irish Ecclesiastical Journal, and Dr Kevin Cathcart, professor of Near Eastern languages in University College Dublin, recalls the achievements of the Assyriologist, Edward Hincks, whose compelling portrait hangs in the Manuscripts Room in the Library of Trinity College Dublin.
The more recent past is committed to print with the inclusion of sermons by Prof John Bartlett, principal of the Church of Ireland Theological College, and the noted ecumenist, Father Michael Hurley SJ.
As always the review editor, the Very Rev Peter Barrett, Dean of Waterford, has assembled a wide range of contributions which provide an admirable introduction to recent publications.
Today in Galway the Annual Christmas Fair of St Nicholas's Collegiate Church will be held in St Patrick's School hall, opposite the church, while in Dublin, in the evening, the Draiocht Chamber Choir will give a concert in Christ Church Cathedral. The Bishop of Cashel and Ossory, the Right Rev John Neill, will be in Zimbabwe for the General Assembly of the World Council of Churches, which will continue until December 16th.
Tomorrow RTE will broadcast Morning Service for Advent Sunday from St Paul's Church, Glenageary, where the rector is the Ven Gordon Linney. The Bishop of Meath and Kildare, Dr Richard Clarke, will preach in St John's Church, Sandymount, while the Bishop of Tuam, Dr Richard Henderson, will give the inaugural Webster Lecture in St Fin Barre's Cathedral, Cork. In Dublin there will be Advent Processions and Carols in Christ Church and St Patrick's Cathedrals while, in Limerick, Bishop Edward Darling will preside at the Advent Carol Service in St Mary's Cathedral.
In Rosscarbery, on Tuesday, the Bishop of Cork, Cloyne and Ross, the Right Rev Roy Warke, will address the Carbury Clerical Society on the theme, "Lambeth '98 Revisited", and on Wednesday, in the Centre for Christian Studies in St Fin Barre's Cathedral, Cork, the rector of Bandon, Canon Michael Burrows, will address the issue of Holy Communion and Children. On Thursday the annual sale in aid of St Luke's Home, Cork, will be held.
The series of lectures on Judaism and Christianity continues in the School of Hebrew, Biblical and Theological Studies in Trinity College Dublin, on Thursday evening when the visiting speaker will be Prof Stephen Moses from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.
A new book from the theologian Anne Thurston has been published by Gill and Macmillan. In Knowing Her Place, Gender and the Gospels, the author rereads familiar Bible stories concerning women and brings to them that provocative and passionate perspective which made her previous book, Because Of Her Testimony, so successful.
A publication of a different type, but equally compelling in its own way, is the Church of Ireland Directory, the 1999 edition of which is now available from the Religious Education Resource Centre in Rathmines (tel (01) 4972821).