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February '98 around and about Dublin'sChrist Church Cathedral |
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29 days after my heart transplant operation in the splendid care of the Mater Hospital surgeons and nurses I am now home in the deanery. Tender loving home care under Patricia Bray surely cannot be better anywhere! I am now in what the hospital calls "barrier convalescence". This means that, during the next month or so while my natural immune system is medically lowered to prevent rejection of the new heart, I have to be careful against all infection, however slight.
My thanks to the archbishop for his compassionate caring both before and during my stay in hospital, to my clergy and lay friends and to the (literally) hundreds who sent cards, letters, telephone calls and flowers - not to mention telephone calls from all over the world. These were all a source of great comfort. In my present condition it would be simply impossible to answer them individually so I hope Review readers will accept this as my thank you to them.
Naturally my inexpressible thanks go to the family who generously offered the heart of their loved one for the benefit of another. I shall never know who they are - nor they who it was received that heart - but I shall remember them in my prayers for the rest of my days.
To all in the cathedral, both clergy and laity, who have so well maintained our daily life and worship since my sick leave began in September, I express my own gratitude and that of the regular congregation. May God bless you all.
John Paterson
A further series of lectures on the life of the cathedral will take place in February. The subject of the series will be The Victorian Cathedral - Christ Church in the Nineteenth Century. Like the first series, they are intended to be popular illustrated lectures, which will take place at lunch time on Mondays 2, 9, 16 and 23 February , in the crypt of the cathedral, each beginning at 1.15 p.m. Two of the speakers are to be Kenneth Milne and Andrew Johnstone. The other two names, hoped for but not yet finally confirmed, for obvious reasons cannot be mentioned.
Dr Milne is historiographer to the Church of Ireland and also keeper of the archives at Christ Church. He will speak on the changing role of the Church of Ireland in the nineteenth century: the Church Temporalities Act in 1833 and the disestablishment of the church in 1871, focusing particularly on the effect of these changes on the cathedral. Andrew Johnstone is a lecturer in music at Trinity College and also assistant organist at the cathedral. He proposes to give an illustrated talk on the less redeeming features of Victorian music. Taking examples from composers associated with the cathedral music scene at the time, this promises to be quite an enlightening delivery!
Three singers joined the cathedral choir for the new year: Susan Hood, Jonathan Manners and Lucy O'Sullivan. Susan has returned to her native city to take up a post at the RCB Library. Jonathan is an Englishman, and is singing with us for two terms as part of his gap year. Lucy is a first year student in Trinity College, and a former member of the choir of Limerick cathedral. The choir now numbers some twenty seven singers - just three short of our new maximum of thirty. This number was arrived at after considerable discussion between organist, clergy, choir and board representatives, and we are confident that the increased size will reduce pressure on individual singers and enable a richer more varied sound.
A new feature of the monthly music list begins on 22 February: towards the end of each month, an extended anthem will be sung at Sunday Evensong. The choir will be able to offer on these occasions the larger scale riches in the repertoire, from Bach motets to Britten cantatas. The will mean that Evensong will be a little longer, perhaps by up to ten minutes, but our worship will be endowed with an added resource for the marking of the liturgical season. On Sunday 22 February, Hubert Parry's splendid cantata Blest Pair Of Sirens will be sung. Composed in 1887 and dedicated to Stanford it is a thrilling eight part setting of John Milton's At A Solemn Music. The text is a perfect raison d'être for cathedral worship: "...Voice and Verse, wed your divine sounds, and mixed power employ dead things with inbreathed sense......O may we soon again renew that song, and keep in tune with heaven, will God ere long to His celestial consort us unite, to live with Him, and sing in endless morn of light."
In the liturgical cycle, February is a turning point. The Christmas season comes to a close with the celebration of the Feast of the Presentation of Christ in the Temple. This is marked in the cathedral on Sunday 1 February at 8 p.m. by the Candlemas Procession, a colourful liturgy in which a procession of light is made the length of the building. This year's procession will feature as set of superb motets by the early seventeenth century Dutchman Jan Pieterzoon Sweelinck.
On Sunday 15 February services will be sung by the choir of Saint Columba's church, Knock, Belfast. The Revd Dr Alan McCormack will be the preacher.
February will also bring us to the first day of Lent and the solemn ceremonies and Eucharist of Ash Wednesday, - 25 February at 6 p.m.. The music of this service will include Thomas Tallis' five part Litany sung in procession and Miserere mei (psalm 51) as set by Gregorio Allegri.
Material for March must arrive with the dean by 14 February 1998.
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