Weekly Record

29th October 2006

I hope you all enjoyed the extra hour in bed this weekend. I’m not sure whether it will make us clergy more bright eyed and alert or not for the Sunday services!

November upon us already and we are already sending out information regarding Advent and Christmas. We blame the shops for anticipating Christmas too early but we have been in talks with the BBC regarding the filming of Midnight Mass since August this year. That’s anticipation for you!

The arrival of November heralds the last weeks of the liturgical year. The themes of death, good triumphing over evil, judgement and the Glory of Christ’s Kingdom at the end of time are celebrated in the Sundays and Feasts over the course of this month. This over we wake up to the Advent of a new church year in December.   I always feel that there should be a sense of peace and stillness in order to give us more space to reflect during the liturgies of the last few Sundays of the year leading up to the triumphant Feast of Christ the King.

This week we celebrate the Feast of All Saints on Wednesday 1st November. As you know this is a Holyday of Obligation and the Mass times are as indicated over the page in the newsletter. This is followed by the Feast of All Souls on Thursday. The two feasts blend together in honouring the great saints of the church and all the ordinary saints who have struggled to live out a life of faith and influenced others through their love and witness. We remember the souls of the faithful departed, especially our deceased loved ones at Mass throughout the month.

One or two people have indicated that although our loop system works it needs to have a stronger signal/amplification. I have asked the sound engineers to look into this and they will be here this week seeing if they can improve on the ‘current’ arrangement. At the same time they have been more forcibly requested to get the foyer speaker working again. It is particularly important that the sound system is working at its best as we start to enter a very busy period for the Cathedral leading up to Christmas. Please keep me in the loop regarding audible improvements.

With the work in Cathedral House now, thankfully, almost finished my attention has swung back to some of the wider Cathedral site issues. One problem that Monsignor Cookson had grappled with for many years was the traffic problems on Mount Pleasant immediately outside the Cathedral and its entrances. At times coming in or out of the car park or Cathedral House in a vehicle is like Russian roulette-your view is blocked either way, cars can be parked on either side of the road, and you edge out in the hope that anything coming from either direction will give way. I may need your assistance by way of a petition if we have to use some political muscle to get something done.

Fr Tony O’Brien          

Dean