All services cancelled this Sunday 4th March - Please stay indoors and stay safe. Spread the word please!
Message from Archbishop Michael sent to clergy earlier this week:
While I would be among the first to encourage everyone to go to church on Sundays, if possible, I am conscious that over the past few days we have endured a very significant period of bad weather right across the country. The people of Dublin and Glendalough have not been immune from this and I hope and pray that you have been safe during this time.
As the forecast for the weekend is not good, I make the following suggestions for Sunday March 4th in order to enable you to worship at home and to feel part of the family of the Church of Ireland. The meteorological situation may change in the meantime but we have no assurance that this will be the case as things stand just ahead of the encouragement to all of us to stay indoors for the foreseeable future.
As well as services being broadcast on RTE television and RTE radio, Christ Church Cathedral and St Patrick’s Cathedral live stream their Sunday morning services. If you find that you cannot safely make it to your parish church this coming Sunday, you might like to follow one of these options.
Alternately you might like to sit quietly and reflect on the Collect for The Third Sunday in Lent, the Collect for Ash Wednesday and read the Gospel: St John 2:13-22 where Jesus makes the essential connection between his body and the resurrection through a fresh definition of the temple of his body, in this way connecting his life and death and resurrection with the salvation offered to humankind on the cross,
sincerely
+Michael
Dublin & Glendalough
The Collect of the Third Sunday in Lent:
Merciful Lord, Grant your people grace to withstand the temptations
of the world, the flesh and the devil
and with pure hearts and minds to follow you, the only God;
through Jesus Christ our Lord.
The Collect for Ash Wednesday
Almighty and everlasting God, you hate nothing that you have made and forgive the sins of all those who are penitent: Create and make in us new and contrite hearts that we, worthily lamenting our sins and acknowledging our wretchedness, may receive from you, the God of all mercy, perfect remission and forgiveness; through Jesus Christ our Lord.
John 2: 13-22
Jesus Cleanses the Temple
13 The Passover of the Jews was near, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem. 14In the temple he found people selling cattle, sheep, and doves, and the money-changers seated at their tables. 15Making a whip of cords, he drove all of them out of the temple, both the sheep and the cattle. He also poured out the coins of the money-changers and overturned their tables. 16He told those who were selling the doves, ‘Take these things out of here! Stop making my Father’s house a market-place!’ 17His disciples remembered that it was written, ‘Zeal for your house will consume me.’ 18The Jews then said to him, ‘What sign can you show us for doing this?’ 19Jesus answered them, ‘Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.’ 20The Jews then said, ‘This temple has been under construction for forty-six years, and will you raise it up in three days?’ 21But he was speaking of the temple of his body. 22After he was raised from the dead, his disciples remembered that he had said this; and they believed the scripture and the word that Jesus had spoken.
