22.11.2016
Walk of Light Brightens Dark Times
Almost 300 people braved the freezing conditions on Sunday evening (November 20) to join Dublin Council of Churches’ 12th annual Walk of Light. The inter–church journey involves Christians of many denominations and this year the route took them from St Teresa’s Church on Clarendon Street to Adelaide Road Presbyterian Church finishing at Methodist Centenary Church on Leeson Park.
The theme for this year’s Walk of Light was ‘Do not consider the things of old. I am about to do a new thing…’ (Isaiah 43). Participants reflected on this theme at each of the three stops.
The walk takes place each year before the start of Advent. As the commercial world lights up for Christmas, participants in the Walk of Light set out to declare publicly that Christ is the light that has come into the world.
Living in a time in which homelessness is at crisis point, displaced people try to find their way across the globe, there is political uncertainty and as people are divided into ‘us and them’, the organisers of the Walk of Light believe that seeking the light of Christ together gives strength to over come disillusionment and despair.
Self harm and suicide are another form of darkness affecting many and this years collection in each of the churches was donated to Pieta House who run prevention and support programmes.
Dublin Council of Churches organises the walk in cooperation with the local Church of Ireland, Ethiopian Orthodox, Korean, Lutheran, Methodist, Presbyterian and Roman Catholic congregations. The liturgy on the walk unfolded at each of the three stops and was put together by the Carmelite Community and the Dublin Ethiopian Orthodox congregation; Adelaide Road Presbyterian Church, the Dublin Korean Church and St Finian’s Lutheran Church; and St Bartholomew’s Church of Ireland, Methodist Centenary Church and ICON Community.
For more photos see https://www.facebook.com/DublinandGlendalough/posts/1150562061646503