The August Lull
During the month of August with many staff and parishioners away on holiday the range of activities and events at the Cathedral is greatly reduced. There will be a cantor rather than choirs leading the music for Masses on the Sundays throughout the month. Throughout the weeks of August there is a summer season of organ recitals at 2pm every Sunday. This week the visiting organist is Stephen Hargreaves and next Sunday Daniel Mansfield. The weekday Masses continue at the regular times and on Wednesday this week there will be a funeral Mass at 12.15 for Callum O’Flaherty which will be celebrated in the Blessed Sacrament Chapel.
It is now over two years since 3 of the panels of glass from the columns at the East and North ends of the Cathedral site were vandalised and had to be taken away to be repaired. They needed to be shipped back to Germany were they were originally assembled for repair. The panels are now back from the Derrix Glass Studios and are due to be reinstalled this Friday. This will take a considerable amount of engineering and skill to reassemble these panels into place involving having a crane on site. How sad is it that a mindless act of vandalism by two teenagers on one evening has resulted in such a level of cost and time and effort to rectify.
For all those who are travelling on holiday this week I hope you have a safe journey and enjoyable time away.
Monsignor Anthony O’Brien
Cathedral Dean