Cathedral in Touch A Newsletter for our Community 30 May 2021 | Trinity Sunday Gaia Choir Chaperones LCR Luke Jerram's art installation A call for volunteers now A surprising discovery in comes to the Cathedral our choirs are back! the North Porch LCR We’ve reached the epoch of the Christian Year with Whit or Trinity Sunday still marked in society through the remnant of the second May Bank Holiday. We now enter what Precentors call ‘Ordinary Time’. The most obvious sign of this is that the vestments change to green for the growing season. It interests me that growth is especially associated less with the Feasts and more with the ordinary. This year, Ordinary Time from now through to the late autumn will probably be particularly memorable; less because of Covid but hopefully more related to the Welcome Welcome transformation of our cathedral from tranquil idyl to dusty building site as Leicester Cathedral Revealed hopefully starts in earnest. We have identified Messenger Construction, based in Standford, as our builders. They are not only fairly local but they have a great list of sucessful projects including repairing the Turret Gateway Magazine in the city, the resotration of Beverley Minster and the building of Neville Holt Opera House. They are primed and ready to come onto site in July, pending Cathedral Chapter being able to sign the contract. We await two successful grant applications and raising £500k (which includes money to support cathedral running costs while the building work requires us to be closed). The top of the mountain is nearly reached but one final push is now needed to take us ‘home’. So assuming we raise that final amount of money to enable us to go on site in July, the builders will first dismantle the Old Song School. Then they will excavate a deep pit that eventually will contain the new double height basement for our new building. As this site was originally part of the medieval burial grounds, archaeologists will do this work by hand. We have planned for a worst case scenario of discovering up to 400 sets of human remains but it will be deep enough to encounter Saxon and indeed Roman strata. If this were elsewhere I’d be praying for lots of exciting finds but I’m hoping we don’t find anything too glorious! During this time (approx 6 months) the main cathedral will remain open but we will have to operate differently without a ‘back stage’, WC’s, spaces for volunteers, and plenty of dirt and dust outside with about two-thirds of Cathedral Gardens fenced off as part of the builders’ compound. This will also mean we can’t use the South Porch as our main entrance but we’ll modify elsewhere to make things as accessible as possible. Advent and Christmas 2021 will then take us to the 2022 New Year with work then also beginning inside the cathedral. It will then be mostly out of use for about 18 months bar St Katharines Chapel, the Ambulatory and Tomb of Richard III, and the Chapel of Christ the King. We’ll hopefully be able to allow small numbers of visitors with bespoke tours to visit but entrance will have to be via a small door on the North side that opens out onto Guildhall Lane (it is narrow, low with uneven steps so it will not be accessible to everyone), which is the best we can manage. We will worship on Sunday mornings in the Grand Hall of St Martins House. On Sunday afternoons we plan to be out and about in the Diocese sharing ministry and music with parishes and communities. This project will be exciting and will require huge amounts of planning, chaperoning and delivery. We very much hope that the community will ‘put the shoulder to the plough’ and join in. During the week daily prayer (including Evensong), lunchtime Eucharists and special midweek services will take place at St Nicholas, building on our exisiting relationships. Information on the hoardings along with an active social media presence will try to share the project with the wider community as it develops. This will include sharing stories about the builders, their crafts and significant steps in the development as well as photographs and films. We recognise that some people will catch the excitement we have for the future whilst others will be feeling the loss of the familiar and others will be unsure. We are describing our preparations for leaving and our time out of the building as an Exodus which in time will bring a homecoming into a new situation – perhaps not a land flowing with milk and honey but certainly a place of worship, welcome and witness set up for the next century of service to our Diocese with its City and County. The Very Revd David Monteith Dean of Leicester CANON-IN- RESIDENCE 4 News Updates ONE OF the clergy always holds this 7 Hymns, Pimms and a Tea Party! phone. Do feel able to contact us if you 8 Gaia and Events need but please be aware we cannot 11 LCR Update receive texts. 12 History Now 07399 523 330 14 Reflection 16 Prayer Thoughts 18 Worship and Donations News from Leicester Cathedral Worship – Together to their hearts. Usually it COVID Guidance in Different is the presiding minister’s The Government has Languages voice that leads this confirmed that new prayer in English from the advice published on Last Sunday for Pentecost, altar. It felt very profound we included people from its website in relation to enable someone else to to Leicester and other our Cathedral community lead it from amongst the reading and praying areas was incorrect, and heart of the congregation, people should continue in different languages and to do so in another at various points in to follow existing national language, and we would guidelines as before. the service. This was a like to see if we can reminder of the Holy Spirit continue this as a regular There is no local coming upon the first part of our worshipping lockdown and no followers of Christ and life. restriction on travel in to enabling them to speak or out of Leicester. in different languages If you would like to lead The Lord’s Prayer from Gaia at Leicester so others could hear the Cathedral will continue to good news of Jesus Christ. the congregation in any language as Marian did be open as normal. The service was also last week and as Mirjam We have done everything the beginning of a will do this week, please we can to provide a safe conversation that we speak to Canon Emma and comfortable visit, hope we can continue or email her at Emma. with social distancing about inter-cultural Davies@LeicesterCofE. and COVID guidelines worship – how we in org. in place. If you have any our wonderfully diverse Canon Emma would also further questions please community here in the do get in touch. Cathedral can worship love to hear your thoughts together authentically. and ideas about how we We look forward to can truly worship together welcoming you! Several of us were deeply as Leicester Cathedral, moved when Marian led and is always on the look- us in The Lord’s Prayer out for people who might in Shona language and join our teams of readers everyone else joined in and intercessors! in the language closest Call for Choir Chaperones We are looking for committed and reliable people to recruit as Choir Chaperones on a voluntary basis. The role requires attendance at rehearsals and/or services as an essential safeguarding procedure since the vast majority of our singers are under 18. After many months without singing, we’ve been delighted to welcome our choirs back to the Cathedral for rehearsals and services. We pride ourselves on providing an exceptional musical education here at Leicester Cathedral. To achieve our potential, we require two chaperones per rehearsal to allow small-group and individual tuition to take place at the same time as the main practice. This facilitates repertoire being learnt faster, and more challenging repertoire being tackled. The provision of chaperones therefore enhances the musical education that our singers receive. And the larger the pool of chaperones, the smaller the commitment for each individual. Possible commitments include 4.15–6.30pm on Mondays, Tuesdays and Thursdays, 6.45–9.00pm on Fridays, and 9.15am–12.00pm and 1.45–4.00pm on Sundays. Some chaperones commit to a regular slot each week, others come on a more ad hoc basis, following a rota drawn up each month. Please get in touch with Anna Florence at anna.florence@ leicestercofe.org if this sounds like something you’d be interested in. Litany of the Holy Spirit Congratulations to our Director of Music Chris Ouvry-Johns, whose composition Litany to the Holy Spirit is being published by the Church Music Association. The text is by Robert Herrick (1591–1674) whose image can be seen in the St Katharine's chapel window memorialising the Herrick/Herryck family. The first verse says 'In the hour of my distress, when temptations me oppress, and when I my sins confess, Sweet Spirit, comfort me!'. We are perhaps more familiar with the setting by the organist and composer Peter Hurford OBE (1930–2019). Chris wrote this setting for the installation of the current Dean at Pentecost 2013. It is very good that this will now become available for performance in the wider church and cathedral setting. It will be published by CMS/OUP later this year.