St Jude
Last Saturday I had a very enjoyable tour and dinner on the Queen Elizabeth and also a great vantage point from which to watch the fireworks on the waterfront for the celebration of 100 years of the Cunard building. Despite the luxury, a life on the ocean waves is not for me – dry land and beans on toast will do nicely.
Celebrations continue throughout most of this month with the various University Graduation events. This coming week Hope Street will be closed from Monday to Friday to create a pedestrian area with festive offers and decoration to welcome the thousands who take part in the John Moores University Graduation events. If you’re feeling peckish during the week I’m sure that there will be lots of breakfast deals along the Street.
Mr John Waszek, Headteacher of St Edward’s College, will be retiring this summer. He has been at the College (which is also the choir school for the Cathedral) for 24 years and has been extremely supportive of the development of our choirs over the years, being particularly instrumental in the establishment of the Cathedral Girls’ Choir. We will be expressing our thanks and farewell to him at Choral Evening Prayer this Sunday afternoon.
Sts Peter and Paul Catholic High School, Widnes, are having their end of term Mass for pupils, staff and parents in the Cathedral at 12noon on Monday. They were due to come last year to celebrate their twentieth anniversary but unfortunately the school had a bomb scare on the morning of the Mass and the event had to be cancelled. It eventually turned out to be a hoax caused by a student and the individual in question was eventually charged by the police for causing a disturbance of the peace. We hope everything goes off smoothly this year with no last minute problems.
Our own school summer holidays begin at various times over the next two weeks but in the meantime the Cathedral Girls’ Choir are holding voice trials this week for this year’s new intake with a record number of girls applying for the places.
Sadly the statue of St Jude in St Vincent’s church was accidently damaged last week. We have received a letter of apology from the Hope+ project manager regarding this.
“To the Priests & Congregation of St Vincent’s, I am writing on behalf of everyone at Hope+ to express our apologies for the damage which has occurred to the statue of St Jude.
On Tuesday 5th July, during our pantry session at Vincent’s, the statue of St Jude fell from his plinth breaking into three pieces.
Over the three years that Hope+ has operated a pantry at St Vincent, we have been very grateful for the use of the church, but more importantly the wonderful support and encouragement that we have received from both you the congregation, and all the children at the school. We would like to think that we have always worked hard to ensure that we keep the church clean, and have not until now, caused any damage to any part of the building. We are therefore, very sorry indeed that this accident has happened to St Jude. We hope that it is possible to repair St Jude, as we know that although other statues of St Jude are available; this would not be your statue that has stood so proudly in St Vincent’s for so long, and which has been a focus for so many prayers. Hence we are praying that it will be possible to repair the existing statue, rather than having to replace it. Once again, we are really very sorry that this has happened during a Hope+ pantry session, and we are looking forward to seeing St Jude restored and back in place as soon as possible. Nädine Daniel Project Manager”
Canon Anthony O’Brien
DEAN
