Church Review Notes:- December 2012

Saint Catherine & Saint James with Saint Audoen
Canon Mark Gardner (Vicar) Tel: 01 454 2274 Mobile 087 266 0228
Bernard Woods (Diocesan Lay Reader) Tel: 01 808 5304
James Kilbey (Lay Minister) Tel: 01 820 2928
Review Distribution: Doris Brooks Tel: 01 453 0887 

Website  www.cja.dublin.anglican.org
We are indebted to Charlotte Howard of the RB, for providing a new website for the Parish which she also keeps updated. Since most people with Internet access start looking on the web for information about everything and anything, including the Parish, this is most valuable resource. 

Sunday Services
10.00 Eucharist, St Audoen, Cornmarket (free parking, Francis Street, on Sundays).
11.30 Eucharist, St Catherine & St James, Donore Avenue (Service of the Word Second and Fourth Sundays), and Sunday School, in term time. 

Diary Dates (subject to change)
Sunday 2 Dec 19.30 St Catherine’s Church Thomas St, 20th Anniversary Thanksgiving Service for ‘Aids Care Education and Training’. Preacher, the Right Revd Dr Trevor Morrow.

Wednesday 5 Dec 19.00 Gardiner St Church, Concert including St Catherine’s NS. The School also has a website. 

Saturday 8 Dec 15.00 Carol Service for the Church of South India congregation in the Malayalam language.

Sunday 16 Dec following the 10.00 Eucharist at Audoen’s, 11.30 Lessons and Carols St Catherine & St James Donore Ave, in the context of the Sunday School childrens’ Family Service. This will be a combined service for both Churches. 

Christmas Day 10.00 Eucharist St Audoen, 11.30 Eucharist St Catherine & St James Donore Avenue.

Epiphany Sunday 6 January 10.00 Eucharist St Audoen, 11.30 Eucharist St Catherine & St James Donore Avenue. In the early evening, St Audoen’s Carol Service. This will be a combined service for both Churches. 

All Saints Day
Readers of the Review may remember when a Font from the Rectory garden was removed to St James’ Cloone, Co Leitrim. A photograph of Annie Huston of Drumbore House was included in the report. She was instrumental in having the tower restored. ‘That will be my memorial!’ she said. At an advanced age she has passed away. The Vicar attended the funeral in Mohill Church which was not only filled but surrounded by a sea of people standing patiently in wind and rain on All Saints’ Day, Thursday 1 November. It was a very moving sight. Canon Noel Regan, a relative, spoke of the members of the Communion of Saints as ‘the little people’.

Returning to Dublin and All Saints Grangegorman for the festival Sung Eucharist, how heart-warming it was to find the little Church on Phibsborough Road so well attended, after long years of worrying decline. The late Allan (Fred) Gardner was commemorated among others who had passed away since the previous All Saints Day. The Collect tells of God who has knit together his people in one Communion. The Archbishop began by talking about Archbishop Cranmer’s wife doing her knitting, and we wondered where on Earth he was going, but he was heading for the Collect! He also compared her with Angela Merkel, also the daughter of a clergyman, brought up in conditions of austerity. Dr Alan Bruce was missing, having been unable to return to Ireland from Florida because of Hurricane Sandy. 

Institution
The Archbishop’s decision to Institute the Vicar as Rector of the new Parish on Tuesday evening 13 November was shown to have been a good one, when the weather was kinder than the last time and a surprisingly large number of clergy and readers, and of family, friends and neighbours, gathered in the Church of St Catherine and St James Donore Avenue. The constitutional link between the Parish and the Cathedral has been broken but friendly relations were marked by the presence of the Dean of St Patrick’s, the Preacher, Victor Stacey. He remarked on the way in which the city centre has revived, and the Parish is able to stand on its own two feet again. The Diocesan Liturgical Officer devised the Service of the Word and Institution, which I discover is not actually in the printed Prayer Book 2004, and my brother Stephen printed it for me a short notice. I was very late in sending out invitations and my sincere apologies to those who were not personally invited.

Mark Gardner

Fom the Diocesan Communications Officer, Lynn Glanville.
The Dean outlined the history of the parish. In the 1950s and 1960s the Liberties Group of St Peter, St Matthias and St Audoen, St Catherine and St James, St Luke and St Kevin, along with other inner city parishes, experienced serious depopulation as a result of families being rehoused or moving to the suburbs. In dealing with the problem of declining numbers in the inner city parishes, the City and Town Parishes Commission decided to group several churches around St Patrick’s and Christ Church cathedrals.

In 2010 it was deemed that the parish could exist on its own and General Synod voted to allow the group become a union under one incumbent to be known as the Parish of St Catherine and St James with St Audoen.

The Wider World
A message received from a man from Freetown who studied for some time in Dublin. Dear Mark, Greetings from Sweden and I hope this mail will meet you in a good condition of health. I arrived in Sweden three weeks ago and will be returning to Freetown early next week. I am here at an international training programme on Human Rights, Peace and Security.  The training was funded by the Swedish International Cooperation Agency for Development and aims at promoting human rights, peace and security in post-war counties like Sierra Leone, Cambodia, Colombia, Liberia and Temoh Leate. The second phase of the training will be held in March in Cambodia 2013. Sierra Leone will be having local council, parliamentary and presidential elections on the 17th of November 2012. I hope you will not only follow the news but will also pray for the nation for free and fair elections. With Warm Regards, Joseph Ansumana.

Mark Gardner