Weekly Record

9th March 2008

One of the consequences of an early Holy Week and Easter are the affects that this has on the Calendar of Saints Days and Feast Days. St Josephs Feast on 19th is transferred this year to 15th so that it is outside of Holy Week and poor old St Patrick will be lucky if he gets a mention this year as his Day falls in Holy Week and is only transferred if it is a Patronal Feast. The Annunciation, which falls in Easter Week is to be transferred to the following week. All of this has given the Liturgists and Rubricists a field day – you may have gathered by now that I am neither!

Our weekend timetable is as normal this week apart from there being no Sung Evening Prayer. Instead we welcome St Edward’s College to the Cathedral for their Founders Day ceremonies beginning at 2pm. It is a mix of Speeches, Musical Performance and Prizegiving.

We have our Cathedral Service of Reconciliation on Tuesday evening at 7pm. Unfortunately Archbishop Kelly will not be able to join us for this Service due to the death of Bishop Kevin Dunn – Bishop of Hexham and Newcastle and one of the youngest Bishops in England and Wales – whose funeral takes place that day. A number of the Chapter of Canons will be joining us for this service and it is a great opportunity for us all, even the clergy, to celebrate the Sacrament of Penance in a communal way as we approach Holy Week and Easter.

On Friday afternoon the Association of Cathedral Architects will be visiting our Cathedral for a tour and opportunity to discuss the building and view recent developments. As I am supposed to give a talk for this I suppose I will need to brush up on Architectural Terminology. When groups of experts like this come along the worry is not so much what you talk about but the questions that you may be asked afterwards.

The Cathedral work is progressing at a pace in the various sections of the buildings. Next weekend the steel erectors will begin to build the support structure for the glass corridor and rotunda which link the Cathedral to the lift and stairs down to the Crypt. This will mean that the Saturday morning Mass will be celebrated in the Crypt Chapel to allow the noisiest elements of this work to go ahead without disturbing our Morning Prayer and Mass. At the middle, Undercroft level the walls are under construction to create the rooms for the Archives and Study Areas as well as the Corridor to the Lift from the Car Park. Within the Crypt almost all the new central light fittings are in place and further construction work is taking place to renew Toilets and Kitchen Facilities. Work has also re-commenced on the new Science Building outside the Brownlow Hill side of the Crypt and this should enable us to complete the landscaping to the exterior of this side of the building within our construction programme. It is exciting to see the various elements of the scheme starting to come together even at this early stage.

Next week we begin Holy Week and also have to cope with the BBC engineers rigging up for the TV Broadcast at Easter. I’m sure with your co-operation and understanding we will be able to cope with all this without it affecting the beauty of our Holy Week Services.

Canon Anthony O'Brien
Cathedral Dean