Canon Anthony O’Brien –

Cathedral Dean

 

Many of our Cathedral parishioners like to attend Mass on New Year’s Day to ask the Lord’s blessing on the year ahead and honour Mary, the Mother of God. We have one Mass at 10am on this day, and this year Archbishop John Sherrington will preside. You are welcome to join us to welcome the New Year with the celebration of the first Mass of 2026 at the Cathedral.

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The Feast of the Epiphany on 6 January falls on a Tuesday this year, followed by the Feast of the Baptism of the Lord on Sunday 11 January. Following these celebrations, we conclude the Christmas season with the taking down of our crib after a final late Epiphany Carol service on Sunday afternoon at 3pm on 18 January.

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For most of the month of January, the Crypt Halls are booked out for John Moore's University exams, and later in the month on Thursday 22, Liverpool Hope University hold their Winter Graduations within the Cathedral. This first month of the year, we get to see the highs and lows of university education from the stress of exams to the joy of graduation.

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On the weekend of 24-25 January we welcome Bishop Tom Neylon, who will be making a formal episcopal visitation of the Cathedral parish as part of our Liverpool Central Deanery Visitations. We have many visits from Archbishop Sherrington and Bishop Neylon throughout the year, however formal parish visitations only take place every few years and are an opportunity for the Bishop to have a longer time in the parish and have more of an opportunity to chat about the life of the parish, particularly regarding the challenges and opportunities we face.

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Bishop Tom will have a busy weekend; the Cathedral is busy enough in its own right, but there is also the hospital chaplaincy ministry to be included as well. We keep Bishop Tom, and all those he will meet during his visit, in our prayers as we begin the year together as a parish community.