20.04.2020
Message to the Parishioners of All Saints’ Blackrock on the Church’s 150th Anniversary
From Archbishop Michael Jackson
April 21 2020 marks the one hundred and fiftieth anniversary of the consecration of All Saints’ Church, Blackrock. I want to wish the parishioners and rector of today everything that is best as they celebrate this milestone. Like everyone else, they are celebrating this momentous occasion in socially distanced isolation and from without the church building for which they care year after year.
The art and architecture inside All Saints’ Church gives voice to a range of themes and opportunities for the spiritual imagination to savour. A Scriptural and a missional note are struck and sustained in The East Window which challenges and inspires priest and people to this day through the depiction in beautiful glass of St Paul preaching in Athens, Christ blessing the children and St Patrick preaching to the people of Ireland. Interestingly, the builders of All Saints’ were the firm J and W Beckett. It was to this family that Samuel Beckett, the Nobel Laureate, belonged.
My hope had been to celebrate this auspicious occasion with the parish. The onset of the coronavirus has rightly changed all of this. My hope and prayer, however, remain that we will convene on another occasion to do justice to this moment of delight and happiness for everyone. Meanwhile, I offer to all members of the United Dioceses of Dublin and Glendalough, and to anyone else anywhere who wishes to join in this celebration of religious and spiritual life, the opportunity in these days to say at some point on Tuesday the Collect of All Saints’ Day in solidarity with the parish of All Saints’ Blackrock:
Almighty God,
You have knit together your elect
In one communion and fellowship
In the mystical body of your Son Christ our Lord:
Give us grace so to follow your blessed saints
In all virtuous and godly living
That we may come to those inexpressible joys
That you have prepared for those who truly love you;
Through Jesus Christ our Lord.
+Michael
