Canon Anthony O’Brien –

Cathedral Dean

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Here at the Cathedral, we have shivered our way through January and February - the onset of cold weather was accompanied by constant boiler problems. Hopefully, as we journey this month through Lent, we will not only experience new beginnings and an enlivening of our spiritual lives, but also a gradual end to the chill and a relatively warmer place of worship for Holy week and Easter. 

Despite the cold, large numbers of adults attended services on Ash Wednesday, and there seems to be more catechumens and candidates than ever, who are preparing to be baptised and received into the Church, who have signed up for the welcome service on the First Sunday of Lent. We can each be a great encouragement to one another on our Lenten journey. 

Along with the Lenten Sunday Masses, there will be a series of devotional choral meditations at 3pm each Sunday afternoon. Beginning with the Lenten sections of Handels Messiah on 1 March, then on to The Seven Last Words of Christ by Caesar Franck, the Pergolesi Stabat Mater for Mothers Day, and Lamentations for the Fifth Sunday. 

On the 25 March, the Solemnity of the Annunciation, there will be a Mass of Thanksgiving to mark 175 years of Notre Dame Education throughout England and Wales. The sisters of Notre Dame had - and still have - a considerable presence throughout our archdiocese in primary, secondary and higher education, and many past and present young people, myself included, will have benefited from the formation they received from the schools and colleges they attended which were run by the order of sisters. Archbishop Sherrington will preside at the Mass of Thanksgiving, which will be at 1pm. 

At the end of the month we enter into Holy Week, with the celebrations on Palm Sunday marked by the procession of Palms and the Solemn sung Proclamation of the Passion of St Matthew. Later that evening at 7:30pm, as darkness descends, there is a sung celebration of Tenebrae.