23.09.2013
Archbishop Dedicates New Parish Hall at St Ann’s
The newly refurbished parish hall at St Ann’s Church, Dawson Street, was dedicated by the Archbishop of Dublin, Dr Michael Jackson, yesterday (Sunday September 22) following the parish’s harvest service. The Archbishop said that many transformations had happened in the life of St Ann’s and “today rightly is another in the series of confident expressions of Christian witness in the centre of the city of Dublin”.
In his sermon, Dr Jackson said that the parish and the church had sought to develop a number of important things, both for the Church of Ireland and for Christian presence in the city. The first was worship and music, which he stated inspired regular worshippers and visitors alike. The second was community engagement and offering friendship to others through the church and its renowned Friendly Room.
“These have meant that many thousands of people in Dublin and beyond have been met and embraced by God, their company enjoyed and their stories heard, here in this church. This is a ministry which runs alongside the worship; both feed one another as the people of this place grow in faith and in generosity of spirit and of love. My own hope would be that this outreach would continue to grow and to expand – outward, downward and inward – now that the tall has been refurbished and made ready for more and more extensive use,” he stated.
The Archbishop said that St Ann’s called contemporary urban Anglicans to worship God and service needs “beyond the confines of our own prejudices, our own bitternesses, our own warped sectarianism”. He continued: “St Ann’s stands literally on the street… This is a place for witness, this is a location ‘to die for,’ as they say. The parish must seize it as an opportunity for harvest, rather than just having a sparkling new hall for the sake of having a sparkling new hall. The opportunity and the responsibility to share and to distribute, which we always think of in terms of agriculture and produce, is lived out here in ways approporiate to the city and to its open and rapid agenda”.
After the service, the vicar of St Ann’s and St Stephen’s, the Revd David Gillespie, thanked all involved in the work of refurbishing the hall. He thanked the staff, in particular Anne O’Regan who had worked surrounded by a building site for three months. He praised the choir for their musical contribution to the service.
Photo caption: Archbishop Michael Jackson dedicates the newly refurbished parish hall. Also pictured are the Revd David Gillespie and the Revd Martin O’Connor.