Through today, tomorrow and Holy Week there will be a series of events, both traditional and contemporary, which will prepare the church to celebrate the Resurrection on Easter Day.
In St Patrick's Cathedral, Dublin, at 8.00 p.m. today there will be a performance of Arvo Part's Passion (The Passion according to St John) by the Guinness Choir with Colm Carey at the organ.
RTE will broadcast a sung Eucharist for Palm Sunday, celebrated by the Rev Dermot Dunne, with the Girls' Choir of Christ Church Cathedral, Dublin.
In Christ Church, Palm Sunday will be marked by a liturgy which includes the blessing and distribution of palms in the old cloister area followed by a procession of clergy, choir and congregation into the cathedral to the strains of the anthem Hosanna to the Son of David.
Music will also be to the fore in St Patricks's Cathedral, Dublin, where at 3.15 p.m. there will be a performance by the Cathedral Choir of Stainer's Crucifix- ion to mark the centenary of the composer's death. The evening devotion in St Fin Barre's Cathedral, Cork, will take the form of a performance of Eric Thiman's The Imitations of Christ by St Michael's Choir.
During Holy Week a number of bishops will perform preaching engagements in parishes throughout the country. The Bishop of Meath and Kildare, Dr Richard Clark, will preach in Taney, Dublin, and Dr Richard Henderson, Bishop of Tuam, will be in Rathfarnham, Dublin. The Bishop of Cork, the Right Rev Paul Colton, will preach in Monkstown, Co Dublin; the Bishop of Down, the Right Rev Harold Miller, will preach in Bandon, Co Cork; the Bishop of Kilmore, the Right Rev Ken Clarke, will give lunchtime talks in St Mary's Cathedral, Sligo, on Wednesday and Thursday.
On Tuesday at 8.00 p.m. Bach's St John's Passion will be performed in Christ Church Cathedral, Dublin, by Christ Church Baroque and the Cathedral Choir. In Christ Church on Maundy Thursday at noon the Archbishop of Dublin, Dr Walton Empey, will bless the oil of healing and the diocesan clergy will reaffirm their ordination vows. And at the Maundy Eucharist at 6.00 p.m. there will be footwashing.
One of the more contemporary Holy Week experiences has been organised by the chaplain of Trinity College Dublin, Dr Alan McCormick. Under the title `Faith in the Arts - the Aspiration of Genius' the Palm Sunday procession will be enlivened by five canvases from the New Zealand artist, Kelvin Mann. There will be experimental theatre and music on Monday and Tuesday, and on Wednesday the ancient office of Tenebrae will be given a contemporary resonance by video tableaux from the artist, Julanne Clark-Morris, who has recently had an installation in the crypt of Christ Church Cathedral.
On Good Friday in St Patrick's Cathedral, Dublin, the Liturgy of Good Friday and Preaching the Cross will be led by the Bishop of Lancaster, the Right Rev S. G. Pedley, and at 8.30 p.m. there will be a performance of Mozart's Requiem by the Hibernian Orchestra and the Goethe Institute Choir.
The parish of Castleknock, where the rector is the Rev Andrew Orr, will launch a parish website tomorrow, the email address of which is www. castleknock.dublin.anglican.org. On Tuesday evening, in Foxrock Community Centre, the Foxrock Local History Club will host a lecture by Dr Raymond Gillespie, from the Department of Modern History in NUI Maynooth, on the "Reformation at Christ Church".