Dear parishioners and friends,
Yesterday you received an attachment to the email sent from the Parish Office containing the Advent/Christmas edition of Parish Matters. In it the services for Christmas Eve and Christmas Day were outlined. Obviously, this Christmas will be like no other we have experienced and not everyone will be able to attend services in church. While there are two services on Christmas Eve and three on Christmas Day, please remember the maximum capacity at any service is 50 and depending on the make up on the congregation, it might be less. This is because while a family pod can fill a pew, if two individuals arrive, they will have to sit at either end of a pew leaving 2m between them. That is not to say that only families should attend church this Christmas. We want as many as possible to come, but please be understanding of the churchwardens and other stewards who will be working hard to ensure compliance and safety. When the church is full, no one else can be admitted.
Having consulted the vestry, churchwardens and others, it has been decided that we will not take advanced bookings for services. This is for very good reasons. We are the largest parish in the diocese in terms of numbers. Each Christmas we get between 700 and 800 people at services. If we had decided to take bookings, within an hour of the decision being taken, many of our churches would have been fully booked and those not in the loop, or not having internet access, would have been left out. There was also the danger that people would book seats in early December, but then fail to attend on Christmas Day because their plans had changed or they might feel unwell on Christmas morning and so quite rightly not come. Then their booked seat would remain vacant much to the disappointment of those who could have come.
So bear with us. This is a most unusual year, and we hope everything will be back to normal in December 2021 and we can fill our churches and sing our carols to our heart’s content. Services will be available on line as you will have seen in the newsletter. A lot of work is being put into organising these, involving children, musicians, readers and even people from abroad. Also Christmas is not one day but twelve and so there will be quieter services with Christmas music and Holy Communion up to the Epiphany on 6 January. If you can’t come on Christmas Day, maybe you would prefer one of these other services.
Now on to this Sunday, the 3rd Sunday of Advent. The recorded service involves St Michael’s National School in Blackrock. They would normally have their nativity play as part of our service in Blackrock this Sunday. The link to our parish You Tube channel is here
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCZDmEQt2VvcJI9ErW29vxPA/videos
This service will be available from 5pm today.
Church Services are as follows for 13 December 2020
8.30 Holy Communion Blackrock
9.45 Service of the Word and Holy Baptism Passage
10.00 Service of the Word Frankfield
11.15 Service of the Word Douglas
Best wishes
Adrian
—
Archdeacon of Cork, Cloyne and Ross.
The Rectory,
Carrigaline Road,
Douglas,
Cork.
T12 A2RC
