16.05.2017
St Philip’s Church Milltown Celebrates the Past and Looks to the Future on 150th Anniversary
“In the 150th year of St Philip’s we need to grasp the centrality of the Gospel message and also of our centrality in living it and presenting it to others.”
The 150th anniversary of the consecration of St Philip’s Church in Milltown was celebrated in style over the weekend. The church provided the backdrop for a beautiful flower festival which was accompanied by a fascinating exhibition on the history of the church.
The three day festival drew to a close with a special service of Evening Prayer on Sunday (May 14). Archbishop Michael Jackson preached and encouraged parishioners to take the opportunity to become a ‘living temple’ bringing the message of the Gospel into a materialist world.
Introducing the service, the Rector, the Revd Sonia Gyles, said that over the three days they had commemorated the 150 years that had gone before while celebrating the parish as it is today.
Later in the service she thanked all who had helped make the celebrations happen. She paid tribute to the Revd Anne Marie O’Farrell and organist David O’Shea for their work and commitment to the parish. “This weekend we have celebrated St Philip’s at its best. May we continue to work together to ensure that this parish remains a place of worship and welcome and outreach for 150 years to come,” the Rector concluded.
During the service a special piece, written by Anne Marie O’Farrell to celebrate the 150th anniversary of St Philips and dedicated to the Revd Sonia Gyles and David O’Shea, was performed by the choir and the parish’s choral scholars.
In his sermon, Archbishop Michael Jackson said that the church building, through its architect, connected us with the whole of Dublin and the whole of Ireland. The architect Sir Thomas Drew also designed Rathmines Town Hall and the Graduates’ Memorial Building in Trinity College and St Ann’s Cathedral, Belfast. “We continue to need this working combination of south and north, commerce and university today as we always run the risk of folding our antennae in our search for the spiritual and keep the sacred inside the church. We need also this working combination of north and south in the uncharted days of Brexit and the dawning recognition that it is a bereavement that will hurt us all. We need to engage politically and to apply ourselves to making sense of fast–moving national and international events and also to contribute to this sense of making sense,” he said.
He added that the place of God had no purpose without the people of God. “Neither God nor we have any use for empty and discarded shrines. A church, as a house of prayer, takes its role, its vigour and its personality from the people who use it, who come to it and go from it again”. He said we are called to be a church, a living temple, “moving out into the community and taking a role of engagement and participation, meeting and doing, talking and shining forth, confident and proud to be Christian…” A living temple, he said, was formed by a community of strength.
The Archbishop said that in the 150th year of St Philip’s we needed to grasp the centrality of the Gospel message and also of our centrality in living it and presenting it to others – if we were to have the strength and the conviction to stand within and to stand for a spiritual life in the middle of a materialist world.
“My encouragement is that you take hold of the tradition you have received – in the Bible, in the sacraments, in the dedication of this church, in the lives lived before you and in the lives you now live inside and outside the church – and live this tradition out with a sense of intention and a voice of excitement. The connections are not difficult to make. What we need is the courage to witness and to give an account of our belief in God; our concern for humanity, the overwhelming majority of whom we shall never see; and our responsible membership of a creation most of which has no voice to argue for itself. This is our world. This is our story. This is our opportunity,” he said.
The full text of the Archbishop’s sermon is available in the Sermons section of the website.