Next Wednesday is Ash Wednesday, the beginning of the season of Lent. In Christ Church Cathedral, Dublin, there will be a sung Eucharist and Ashing at 6 p.m. and the service, which will last for about an hour, will include the singing of Allegri's haunting Miserere.
Lent, like Advent, is traditionally a time for teaching, and details have been announced of a number of educational initiatives. In St Patrick's Cathedral, Dublin, there will be a series of addresses on the Apostles' Creed at Evensong, beginning on Sunday, March 12th.
All the speakers will be bishops; the Bishop of Meath, the Bishop of Cork and the Bishop of Tuam have been selected from the current house of bishops. They will be joined by two retired bishops, the Rt Rev Noel Willoughby and the Rt Rev Samuel Poyntz, and, from the Church of England by the Bishop of Midleton, the Rt Rev Michael Lewis.
In Rathfarnham, the local Church of Ireland and Roman Catholic communities have combined to organise a series of talks which will be held in Rathfarnham parish church on Thursday evenings, beginning on March 23rd. Under the general title of "Faith Matters for a New Millennium - The Challenges of Today's Society" there will be talks on "Faith and Society", "Business and Faith", "Faith for Society's Builders" and "A Down to Earth Faith".
The new Church of Ireland video Profiles of Faith is a potentially useful vehicle for Lent study groups, as is the APCK book of millennium essays, A Time to Build, which was edited by the Dean of Raphoe, Dr Stephen White.
This morning the preacher in the "Church and the World" series of sermons in St Fin Barre's Cathedral will be the Archdeacon of Cork, the Ven Robin Bantry White, while at the final sung Eucharist of Hilary term in Trinity College Chapel, Senator David Norris will preach on "Visions of Community". In the afternoon, the Bishop of Cashel and Ossory, the Rt Rev John Neill, will preside at the annual Festival Service in Seir Kieran. There will be a feast of the music of Bach in Dublin tomorrow afternoon. At 3.30 p.m. in St Ann's Church, Malcolm Proud will give a harpsichord recital, and at 5.30 p.m. in Christ Church Cathedral, there will be a performance of Cantatas 22, 127 and 159 by Christ Church Baroque.
In Christ Church Cathedral on Tuesday morning there will be a press conference to launch the programme for Ceiliuradh, the festival of liturgy and music which will be held in the cathedral during the week June 11th to June 18th.
A vocations conference begins in the Theological College on Friday and continues the following day. This is an opportunity for those who may be thinking about ordination to learn more about the ordained ministry. Applications to attend should be made through rectors, chaplains or diocesan directors of ordinands.
Canon Alister Grimason is to be the next Dean of Tuam. He was ordained in 1979 and, after curacies in Belfast and Dublin, was appointed rector of Navan in 1984. In 1991, he moved to his present position as rector of Tullamore and in the following year he was appointed to the Prebend of Tipper in St Patrick's Cathedral, Dublin. The new dean will be installed in St Mary's Cathedral, Tuam, on April 7th.