Cathedral Record

by Deacon Paul Mannings

Would you like to join our voluntary team to welcome and/or guide? At the Cathedral, just like in any good parish, we strive to offer the best welcome to all. As well as our regular community of parishioners, we receive pilgrims and visitors from all over the world. We have a thriving group that is being further enriched, as we continue to move forward from the pandemic and visitor numbers increase rapidly. We are looking for people who can work for a three-hour duty period each week, selected from Mondays to Saturdays 10.00 am until 1.00 pm and 1.00 pm until 4.00 pm. We ask you to select one. There are three alternatives you might consider. Firstly, you may prefer to specialise in welcome desk ministry, greeting our visitors, listening to their stories and impressions, and answering queries. Secondly, you may prefer to offer guided tours for individuals or groups. This too has tremendous scope for engagement. It isn’t about facts and figures, rather our history and story; our signs and symbols; that continued scope for conversation and establishing a rapport. Visitors too, have amazing stories to tell. They may be returning home after many decades with only vague recollections of the Cathedral when it opened in 1967. International visitors love what we have to offer. Thirdly, you might want to combine the work of a guide and a welcomer. The choice would be yours. Essentially, we want our visitors to gain a first-hand experience of Church, a sense of a vibrant and living Catholic Christian community. At the heart of everything is the reservation of the Blessed Sacrament in the Cathedral and Crypt so defining exactly who we are. Visitors are from many world faiths religions and world views. Many call to pray, others to reflect, to be still or to simply call in and see. What do we show our visitors and where do we take them? After being greeted at the Atrium they can take their own time by themselves, with the knowledge that a guide is always on hand to answer questions or to point the way. Alternatively, we can accompany them for a tour. Visitors currently explore the main body of the Cathedral. From 1 September we shall once again open our Crypt with its spaces for prayer and viewing of our diocesan treasures. You are invited to come and train on the job with support from existing teams and from our training hub, held on Saturday mornings. You are welcome to use the resources we offer you as a starter for designing your own guiding script. As a volunteer we want you to enjoy being here as part of the community of ambassadors to Catholic Life in our archdiocese. The guiding team is big and needs to be bigger by 1 September, from which time we shall have two welcome desks to manage at both the Atrium and Rotunda Crypt Entrance. We shall need to maintain our guiding presence in Cathedral and Crypt. Could you give us those three hours each week? In return, you would be a valued volunteer, here to share of your best and to belong. A warm welcome awaits you. For further information contact Deacon Paul Mannings. Email: p.mannings@rcaol.org.uk

Canon Anthony O’Brien –Cathedral Dean

We welcomed the announcement that Canon Tom Neylon is to be ordained as an Auxiliary Bishop for the Liverpool Archdiocese on 3 September at the Cathedral. However, the reality has soon dawned that we only have a few weeks to coordinate all that will be needed for the liturgy and the reception afterwards - both at the Cathedral. It has been some time since we had a celebration on this scale so we are having to step up a gear or two during August to get everything ready. Invitations have gone out to personal guests, other church leaders and bishops and priests throughout the country and the preparations are underway. We are only planning to return to our full schedule of services, including the opening of the Crypt and Chapel on the weekend of 4/5 September so the ordination on 3 September should be a wonderful occasion to mark a new start for the Cathedral post pandemic as well as a celebratory Diocesan occasion. Prior to the Covid outbreak there had been a group of volunteers and staff carrying out research in preparation for a new series of Exhibition boards for the Pontifical Hall within the Crypt. This display in text and illustrative form is now in the final stages of preparation to be in place for September. They give an account of the development of our Cathedral buildings with lots of interesting Diocesan and historical facts related to our buildings. The Cathedral is grateful to all the people and students who carried out the research and contributed to the final exhibition. We look forward to seeing it in situ when the Crypt opens again. The Solemnity of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary on 15 August falls on a Sunday this year and will be celebrated at the Vigil and Daytime Masses.