Worcester Cathedral
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WORCESTER CATHEDRAL NEWS Spring/Summer 2020 Inside this issue From Support Newly the the discovered Dean Cathedral archaeology Pages 2-5 Pages 6 & 7 Pages 12 & 13 Plus, details of online Cathedral services www.worcestercathedral.co.uk From the Dean Spring/Summer 2020 From the Dean JDA Media JDA Contents Photo: 2-5 From the Dean I wish to begin by sending every reader of this newsletter 6 - 7 Support the Cathedral my greeting and the assurance 8 - 9 Community News of my prayers for you and 10-11 Eco-Cathedral your loved ones. The sight of the Cathedral closed and 12-13 Archaeology empty brings home to me how 14-15 Arts & Events important is the community of 16 Time for Reflection staff, worshippers, volunteers, 17 Fundraising Friends of the Cathedral, and visitors who bring the place to 18 Cathedral Information life each day. We are finding 19 Prayer new ways to keep in touch, but at the same time praying for the day when the Editorial Team Cathedral will re-open. Susan Macleod and Emily Green Elsewhere in these pages you Photography can read about some of the Chris Guy, James Atkinson, ways in which you can keep Peter Smith and Chris Dobbs in touch with the life of the Cover Photograph Cathedral. Included in these Colin Nash, highly commended is the new website, and I Photographic Competition congratulate Susan Macleod entry 2019 and her team on bringing this into existence. I also draw Worcester Cathedral News your attention to the important The Chapter Office, letter from Cathy Sloan, our The Dean live streaming from his home 8 College Yard, Fundraising Manager, on the Worcester, WR1 2LA Do join me finances of the Cathedral. Telephone: Our Chief Operating Officer, thinking that Holy Week and Easter have been lockdown and isolation, we look forward to 01905 732900 and my our Accounts Office, and our cancelled. the day when society begins to function again, we can meet our friends and relatives, we can Finance Committee are Do join me and my colleagues in the eucharist Email: colleagues in worship together, and we can enjoy the sense [email protected] working very hard with the and morning prayer we are live-streaming from the Eucharist Chapter to ensure that the of life coming back to our stricken world. Website: our homes. Do reflect on the story of the final Cathedral remains financially days of Jesus’s earthly life and take heart from With all that in mind, I have no hesitation in worcestercathedral.co.uk and morning sustainable, but I hope that no the story of Easter. wishing you a very happy Easter. one will under-estimate the Twitter: prayer we are It was just a year ago in Holy Week that Notre @WorcCathedral challenge that we all face. live streaming Dame Cathedral in Paris was almost destroyed Facebook: I am writing this letter to you by fire. It seemed to many that the loss of that @WorcesterCathedral from our just before Holy Week begins. precious building and the promise of its Instagram: homes Grievous as it is that there are reconstruction was a metaphor for the story worcestercathedral no churches open for worship, of Holy Week and Easter. For us too this year, Peter Atkinson, Tripadvisor let us not make the mistake of living through this long Lenten experience of Dean of Worcester Certificate of Excellence 2 Worcester Cathedral News Worcester Cathedral News 3 From the Dean From the Dean of the Cross’, the journey of Jesus to his Booking Although the Cathedral is Closed… crucifixion. The Diocese of Worcester website and the Church of England website will also We are still able to consider applications for give you access to other acts of worship and services and events. One day the Cathedral Peter Atkinson, Dean of Worcester opportunities for prayer and reflection. will be open again! Clearly, there is some uncertainty about all this, but we would still Although we are not publishing a sick list, do encourage individuals or groups who might let Canon Stephen Edwards know if you wish want a special service or event, a concert or to add the name of a sick or departed person an exhibition, to get in touch with us at Chris Dobbs to a prayer list privately held by the Cathedral [email protected] clergy (stephenedwards@worcestercathedral. Photo: org.uk). This should be with the permission of Funding the person concerned, or their family. It will be obvious that many of our sources of regular income have now stopped: collections Daily Music at services, donations from visitors, hire The Cathedral’s musicians and others are charges for events, revenue from the café and voluntarily offering a short musical recital the shop. In addition to that our investments from one or other of their homes each day at have taken a hit, and the rental market is 6.30pm. This is accessible on a new Facebook fragile. page ‘Daily Music from Worcester’. This is where the support of our community Cathedral Website of regular worshippers and volunteers is so important. We are so grateful to those of you After many months of preparation, the new who contribute regularly through our planned Cathedral website (www.worcestercathedral. giving or ‘stewardship’ scheme, known as co.uk) went live recently. Of course, much of TRIO (The Responsibility Is Ours). If you do the content relates to the normal life of the this at the moment by means of envelopes, Cathedral. It is a new tool by which news of you may wish to consider changing this to a the Cathedral can be published. Although the Cathedral is now closed for Daily Prayer and Worship standing order instead. If you don’t contribute worship and for visiting, its work and witness through the scheme, please consider doing so. continue. The Cathedral’s first and foremost purpose, of offering worship day by day, goes on. We And finally... The famous view of the Cathedral remains an are providing a celebration of the Holy inspiration. The Chapter continues to have Communion from the Deanery on Sundays, My colleagues of the Cathedral Chapter and responsibility for the building and for all that Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays, and on I are deeply aware of the importance of the goes on in the name of the Cathedral.Here are the other days Morning Prayer from one of the Cathedral Community, by which we mean our some of the things still going on while the canons’ houses. These services are live- staff, our volunteers, and our regular present lockdown lasts. streamed to the Worcester Cathedral Facebook worshippers. The Cathedral clergy, staff and page every morning at 8.30am. They are then heads of volunteer groups will do what they accessible on the Diocese of Worcester website can to keep in touch with the different parts of (www.cofe-worcester.org.uk) and on the Cathedral Community, but we would encourage you also to keep in touch with each Facebook. (You don’t need a personal Cathedral Office and Staff Facebook account to access this. You can click other and with us. Though for the time being on the Facebook link on the bottom left of the Apart from a small core needed for the we are dispersed to our homes, let us remain ...services are live-streamed Cathedral website. Click ‘not now’ if you don’t continuing organisational tasks, the members in each other’s thoughts and prayers. Let us want to subscribe to Facebook.) of the Cathedral staff have now been placed hope that we and our loved ones stay well. to the Worcester Cathedral on ‘furlough’. We are sad not to see them at And let us look forward to the joyful day Facebook page every morning Each day up to Easter, a new poem written by work around the Cathedral, but the good when the doors of Worcester Cathedral will Amanda Bonnick, our poet-in-residence, was news is that the Government will pay 80% of again be flung open, the bells will ring out, the at 8.30am added to the Cathedral Facebook page. The their salaries. The Chapter Office is closed for flag willHope fly, Pughand andthe Alexis thrilling Hutchinson sounds of choirs theme of the poems is the traditional ‘Stations the duration of the lock-down. and organs once again be heard. 4 Worcester Cathedral News Worcester Cathedral News 5 Support the Cathedral Support the Cathedral Cathedral Development – An Uncertain Future Cathy Sloan, Fundraising Manager When we shut our doors last of regular contact with others voluntarily offering recitals month, we knew that it would hard to bear. The thousands from their homes which can come as a real and tangible of people who visit us every be enjoyed over Facebook. blow to the Cathedral month, whether that be for And we are minimising Community and beyond. quiet reflection amidst their expenditure wherever we can. It was of course something busy lives or to marvel at our The Cathedral will open again that needed to happen; but wonderful architecture, are but the future is looking the consequences will be far rightly staying at home. Our uncertain and we feel it is reaching for the Cathedral stonemasons have downed right to share our position and all who love it. tools and we can no longer with you. Our immediate welcome schoolchildren or It is a difficult time for those concerns are that we are host events and exhibitions. whom worship and prayer are forecasting a 50% reduction It is all very new, very strange a source of comfort and in income over the next 3 Ways to Donate and unsettling for everyone.