The Parish of Saint Catherine & Saint James with Saint Audoen
Canon Mark Gardner (Editor) Tel: 01 454 2274 Mobile 087 266 0228
Email: markgardner@eircom.net
Review Distribution: Margery Bell Tel: 01 4542067
Website: cja.dublin.anglican.org
Organist: Derek Moylan
Service times every Sunday
10.00 Eucharist, St Audoen, Cornmarket. (Parking in Francis Street is free on Sundays)
11.30 Eucharist (and Sunday School, in term time) St Catherine & St James, Donore Avenue.
(Family Service and Church Coffee, usually Second Sundays)
While works continue in St Audoen’s Park the only access to the Church will be through the OPW Visitor Centre gate on the High Street.
Apologies for the non-appearance of Notes for the month of April, due to absent-mindedness, despite the helpful reminder of the Editor that a bank holiday weekend was approaching.
Family Service
Particular thanks to those who provided for the service and the tea afterwards at St Catherine & St James’ Church, with the theme of Easter, on Low Sunday 8 April 2018. The children enjoy the treats, such as sugary drinks and chocolates, which they are not normally allowed!
Seattle direct
My Mother’s funeral service and cremation took place on Saturday 10 February, just before my sixtieth birthday. My sister Alison and her husband Bill Shelby will attend the interment of ashes at St Michan’s, where my Father’s ashes were interred, at the end of May. They will travel on the inaugural direct flight from Seattle to Dublin, a route which the Irish network there has been influential in creating. My sister writes in www.irishcentral.com ‘Irish Network Seattle, Irish Heritage Club, the Irish Consulate of Western USA and other social and business organizations have helped Sea-Tac Airport make a compelling presentation to Aer Lingus on the commercial viability of direct flights between Seattle and Dublin, and Aer Lingus will be starting non-stop flights between these cities on 18 May 2018.
The traditional routes between Seattle and Dublin, routing via London Heathrow, Paris De Gaulle, or Amsterdam Schiphol, add hours to the journey time and added cost, and a long wait for security, or to get your check at some not-so-fast-food café.
It is fitting that April 2018 marks the anniversary of the inauguration of transatlantic flights by Aer Lingus, which started in 1958 with a single route between Dublin, Shannon and New York.
Another timely element in the decision-making process was Brexit. The likely withdrawal of the United Kingdom from the European Union is scheduled to take place in March 2019. After that, the UK’s administration of documents for EU travellers will become more complicated, and lines at UK airports will grow longer. Dublin Airport already offers pre-departure US immigration and customs inspections, which saves time after arrival in the USA. The tightening of restrictions and the complication of travel paperwork after Brexit could help Dublin Airport to replace Heathrow as a popular transfer-point for travellers between the European Union and the USA.
St James’ James Street
Pearse Lyons, the Irish-born entrepreneur who founded the hugely successful Alltech animal nutrition group, has died in Kentucky at the age of 73. He has beautifully restored the former Church of Ireland Church in James Street and contributed munificently to the modern Parish of St Catherine & St James with St Audoen.
Pearse Lyons had been unwell since November when he entered hospital in the US for routine heart surgery. He suffered complications during his recovery and died on Thursday. His son, Mark Lyons, who is chairman and president of the group, said he is “deeply saddened”, but vowed to continue his father’s work.
“He saw farther into the horizon than anyone in the industry, and we, as his team, are committed to delivering on the future he envisioned. He planted seeds that will produce a bountiful harvest for the world in the years to come,” said Mark Lyons.
‘All things bright and beautiful’
The service of Nine Lessons and Carols begins with ‘Once in Royal David’s City’, the first verse often sung by a solo chorister. On Easter morning churchgoers all round the world sing ‘There is a green hill far away’. Both hymns are from the pen of Cecil Frances Alexander.
The celebrated hymn-writer was born in Dublin in April 1818, and spent the greater part of her life in the Diocese of Derry and Raphoe, in Strabane between 1833 and 1850 and 1860 and 1867, in Castlederg between 1850 and 1855, in Upper Fahan between 1855 and 1860, and in Londonderry between 1867 and 1895.
Her religious work was strongly influenced by her contacts with the High Church Oxford Movement (or Tractarians) and in particular with John Keble, the English poet, Professor of Poetry at Oxford from 1831 to 1841, one of the leaders of the movement.
It was his famous Assize Sermon on ‘National Apostasy’ in Oxford in 1833, prompted by the Whig government’s suppression of ten Church of Ireland bishoprics, which gave rise to the movement.
As a young person, Fanny had been very impressed by Keble’s ‘The Christian Year’ which appeared in 1827. In 1848 ‘Hymns for Little Children’ was published. She invited Keble to write a preface. The book was intended to explain the content of ‘The Apostles’ Creed’ by answering the obvious but searching questions which children often ask. For example, ‘Where was Jesus born?’ was answered by ‘Once in royal David’s city’. The answer to ‘Why did He have to die?’ was provided by ‘There is a green hill far away’.
Her response to ‘Who made the world?’ was ‘All things bright and beautiful’ – probably the world’s favourite children’s hymn. The book reached its sixty-ninth edition before the close of the nineteenth century.
In 1889, at the request of H. H. Dickinson, Dean of the Chapel Royal at Dublin Castle, she produced an English version of a Gaelic poem entitled ‘St. Patrick’s Breastplate’ found in the ‘Liber Hymnorum’. The hymn is also known by its opening line: ‘I bind unto myself today’. This article was carried in the Belfast News Letter on 02/04/2018
