Weekly Record

20th July 2008

The Open at Birkdale and the Tall Ships Festival on the River should make this weekend one of the busiest of the year for visitors to the City. I am hoping to get to see the golf on Friday. Not least because I have played at Birkdale once or twice in the past and never managed to break 20 over par. There is a particular bunker on the course – a deep gaping sandy hollow with a towering twenty foot face topped off by an overhanging edge - which reduced me to abandoning the round on one occasion with a broken spirit and covered in sand. I hope to sit by this bunker at the Open and see what the professional golfers make of it. I reckon that there is no way out of it but I’m sure the experts will prove me wrong.

The Summer holiday period begins this week and thankfully the Cathedral Diary has less entries for the next few weeks. The Diocesan Pilgrimage to Lourdes is now underway until the end of the week. I hope Fr Michael will be saying a few prayers for us all at the Shrine. Our Choir will sing for the last time this weekend until the start of the new term in September. The Choir are going on tour to London this week and will be singing in St Paul’s and Westminster Cathedral as well as enjoying the London Eye, Legoland, Windsor Castle etc. I hope all have an enjoyable and rewarding time away.
Life continues as normal this week. There are the mundane but necessary activities. One of the highlights of the week being scaffolding training on Tuesday. I have always thought of scaffolding as being the adult equivalent of a climbing frame but I’m sure I will be put right by the instructor on Tuesday.

On Wednesday we welcome a large group of parishioners from Salford Diocese who will be visiting the Cathedral. They will attend the 12.15pm service and a number of the priests who will be with them will concelebrate at this Mass.

At this time of the year the Archbishop invites various groups of staff and volunteers who work for the Archdiocese to his house for a reception by way of thanks for their service. The Choir and Altar Servers attended barbecues last week, and as if that wasn’t enough the Cathedral staff and volunteers will be visiting him this week for afternoon tea – a much more sedate and civilised affair. Last year as the last arrivals filed in to his house the Archbishop’s Secretary said to me ‘I didn’t know you had so many workers in the Cathedral’ and all I could think to reply was ‘Neither did I’. Which reminds me of an old quote attributed to Pope John 23rd when asked how many work at the Vatican? His reply was ‘about a third of them!’ But obviously this does not apply to our Cathedral and I want to thank all who help, work or minister in the Cathedral in any way for their dedication and commitment. This has been a very busy year and we would not have been able to cope with all the activities that have taken place here in this first half of our year of culture without everyone playing their part.

Canon Anthony O’Brien
Cathedral Dean