A service in German is held on the last Tuesday of every month at 7pm
Free Church
First Wednesday of every month at 11am
Orthodox Liturgy
A service is held once a month on a Tuesday at 10.30am
Opening times
The Cathedral is open daily 9am - 5pm
Special Services
Bag Blessing Service
Sunday 14 September, 9.30am
Pet Blessing Service
Sunday 5 October, 2pm
Harvest Festival
Sunday 12 October, all services
All Saints Sunday
Sunday 2 November, 9.30am and 11.30am services
All Souls Requiem Eucharist
Sunday 2 November, 4pm
Remembrance Sunday Sunday 9 November
Light Up a Life Service with Rennie Grove Sunday 23 November, 2.30pm
Highlight Events
Magna Carta 800: How 1215’s Crisis
Became 1225’s Constitution Thursday 9 October, 7.30pm
Community Showcase
Saturday 25 October, 11am - 3pm
Poppy Fields Light Show by Luxmuralis
Tuesday 28 October to Saturday 1 November
The St Albans Mystery Plays Friday 7 November, 7pm
St Albans Fireworks Spectacular
Saturday 8 November, 7.30pm
A Day Chaplain is available to talk most days.
All our events are available on our website.
Message from the Dean
Warm greetings and welcome to this edition of Alban News. Alban News exists to tell the story of the life and witness of our Cathedral and Abbey Church, reflecting our commitment to Follow Christ in Alban’s Footsteps. It is about people and how together, and in our partnerships across the city and diocese, we bring to life our commitment to be a place of welcome and compassion, worship and witness, courage and justice, leadership and service. Thank you for your part in that.
In the pages ahead you can learn more about three newer members of our Cathedral team and their ministries; the Revd Jason Wratten, our Youth Chaplain, Fr John Deehan, our new Roman Catholic Chaplain, and Dewi Rees, our Assistant Director of Music. At the same time as welcoming them, in recent months, on his retirement, we said a huge thank you and farewell to Bishop Alan Smith. We all know that Bishop Alan is a wonderful gardener, and many have enjoyed the garden at
Abbey Gate House. The very generous collection for Bishop Alan from the Cathedral congregation enabled us to commission, from well-known sculptor Corin Johnson, a bird bath in the shape of the Alban Cross.
One side is sculpted to shape and the other remains in the stone’s original shape. The ball on top is Portland stone and the bowl Bathstone, both from the Cathedral. The column is Totternhoe from the medieval cloister. Thank you again to everyone who enabled this memorable gift. The work to appoint the next Bishop of St Albans is underway, with a planned installation next summer. Please pray for all involved.
In closing I want to say a particular thanks to Kate Klevit, who has been our Marketing and Communications Executive, and is leaving us this summer for a great promotion. Kate was a key part of the visioning and design for Alban News when it began, and has continued to be its Editor. Thank you so much Kate, and our prayerful good wishes!
Jo Kelly-Moore | The Dean
Behind the Console
My years as Organ Scholar (20202022) were my first experience of being part of a busy Cathedral. I found the volume and pace of events overwhelming but thrilling. St Albans Organ Scholars are fortunate to have a world-class instrument on which to develop their playing, and I am very grateful for the generous support I received from Andrew Lucas and Tom Winpenny in getting to grips with the Cathedral organ. Playing for services such as the Alban Pilgrimage was a unique privilege and a particular highlight of my time as Organ Scholar.
Outside my duties, I make the most of the opportunities this area has to offer – running in Verulamium Park, drinking many coffees in George Street Canteen, walking at Ashridge Estate, and crashing my bike into a ditch on a ride to Hatfield.
It is exciting to be part of a new Music Department. I am already enjoying working with William Fox, Conor McGlone, and all involved in music here to maintain and develop our choral worship and education. I look forward to exploring the possibilities of a new element of my role: working in the diocese beyond our city to give children the opportunity to learn the organ and to experience elements of our musical traditions.
As director of the Cathedral Junior Choir and the Cathedral Youth Choir and with particular care of the probationers in the Cathedral Choir, I will also have the rare opportunity to support some of our young singers from the very start of their careers all the way into a musical adulthood!
Dewi Rees | Assistant Director of Music and Partnerships
The Daylight Club
I first came across The Daylight Club soon after coming to serve at the Cathedral. A member of the congregation, Jean Peyton, was very involved and asked if I would come along to one of their Wednesday gatherings. It is a social club for adults with physical and other disabilities who meet once a week for fun and friendship, to learn new skills and enjoy outings from time to time to places of interest. They meet each week at the New Greens Social Club in St Albans.
In particular, Jean wanted me to come along and plant a tree in their grounds in loving memory of several members of the club who died. Adults with Down’s syndrome typically have a life expectancy of just under 60 years but thankfully that is improving all the time due to advances in drugs, care and support but they were an especially vulnerable group during the Covid pandemic. It was my privilege to plant and dedicate a blossoming cherry in the grounds and
to meet the members who gave me such a warm welcome. I have been back several times since to visit them including some wonderful celebrations at their Christmas party and they have also come to the Cathedral for several visits.
We have been pleased to support the work of The Daylight Club through our Mission Giving at the Cathedral and this year they will be one of our two Firework Charities, along with the Hospice of St Francis. Two great causes and yet another reason to come along and enjoy the best firework display for miles around!
Fr Will | MGT and Firework Committee
St Albans Firework Spectacular
Saturday 8 November, 7.30pm
Verulamium Park
Early Bird discounts available on the Cathedral website.
Men’s Breakfast
Did you know that six times a year a group of around twenty men meet to enjoy an excellent time of fellowship?
We gather at 9am, usually on the third Saturday of alternate months, to enjoy an excellent cooked breakfast in the Abbots Kitchen. A full English is accompanied by unlimited tea and coffee and lots of toast and there is never a shortage of conversation. When breakfast is over, we then relocate to a room somewhere within the Chapter House, usually the Alban Room, where we enjoy a talk from a guest speaker until around 10.45am.
This year we have enjoyed some excellent talks from Professor Keith McAdam reflecting on the challenges of dementia and the work of his charity Music for My Mind, Julian Tatlock who is an award-winning garden designer and landscaper and a very powerful talk by Chris Sibley from the local suicide prevention charity, the OLLIE Foundation.
We are an open group, many from the congregation but not all, and new chaps of any age who would like to come along and join us are really welcome.
Please drop me an email to the address below if you would like to come along and join us. On Saturday 20 September William Fox, the Cathedral’s Director of Music, will be our guest speaker reflecting on his role, his love of music and his previous role at St Paul’s Cathedral.
On Saturday 15 November our guest will be Ian Hunt who is a member of SERV which is a volunteer motorcycle courier service transporting blood, breastmilk and organs for the NHS.
Both talks will be fascinating and a great way to start a Saturday in company of a lovely group. We’re already starting to assemble our line-up of speakers for next year which will include Stephen Venner the former Bishop of Dover, Bruce Covell recently retired GP after 39 years of service and Dave Hoskins, the Head of Commercial Operations at Stevenage FC.
All are welcome.
Alan Hartwell | Convenor of the Men’s Breakfast alan.hartwell@hotmail.co.uk
Holiday Club
In the first full week of the Summer Holidays we enjoyed the most amazing Wonder Zone Holiday Club with over 45 children coming along to enjoy a week of fellowship, faith and fun. The week was themed around wonder and awe at the amazing world that God has created and how we can experience that through all our senses. Each day we began with a time of worship and reflection with a very catchy theme song that stayed in our heads all day! Then we were off into our three groups – Abbey Bears, Roman Lions and Tower Falcons – to enjoy the activities of the day.
Each day we did some sport or yoga, we usually had a craft-based activity which included designing our own T-shirts, making pictures with fruit, roman mosaics and costumes, and then a third activity which ranged from Brazilian samba drumming, through drama and historical re-enactment to an amazing magic show.
It was a wonderful week with a great mix of our own children and others from the wider community attending. Watch this space for an announcement about next year’s Holiday Club which will be even bigger and better, if that is possible. In the meantime, we have some great things to look forward to for our children and families:
All Age Service with Bag Blessing Sunday 14 September, at 9.30am
Harvest Festival Sunday 12 October, at all our services
Christingle Service Sunday 14 December, at 2pm
And, of course, whilst our Abbey Tots and Abbey Tots Service have continued through most of August, all our other usual groups for children and teenagers will be back in early September after the summer break.
Jason Wratten | Youth Chaplain
Ecumenical Chaplaincy
Thanking God for the ministry of Mgr Harry Turner as our Roman Catholic Ecumenical Chaplain… and welcome to Fr John Deehan.
Unique among cathedrals is our ecumenical chaplaincy, including the Roman Catholic Mass celebrated every Friday in the Lady Chapel. At the end of July, we said a fond farewell to Monsignor Harry Turner as ecumenical chaplain since the year 2018. In that time, the Friday Mass has flourished with a regular large congregation filling the Lady Chapel.
Fr Harry is well known and loved for his prayerful and pastoral approach, including the way he enthusiastically ensured that the Mass could take place even during COVID pandemic.
Thankfully, Fr Harry will continue to serve on the rota of priests, a rota he himself has built up, so we look forward to continuing to see him at the Cathedral.
On 1 August, we then welcomed our new Ecumenical Chaplain, Fr John Deehan. Here, Fr John introduces himself.
“It was a great surprise, and a delight for me when I was asked to become an Ecumenical Chaplain to the Cathedral on behalf of Westminster Diocese. I retired from being a Parish Priest in Kentish Town in North London last September after spending about twenty years ministering in suburban parishes. In an earlier part of my life I taught Scripture at our Diocesan Seminary, Allen Hall, in Chelsea.
Through my Scripture studies I developed a great interest in the Holy Land. I was fortunate to spend a year in Jerusalem in 1982 and returned for a term’s sabbatical in 2008. Life was tense then, but compared to now it was relatively peaceful. I have visited the Holy Land several times with pilgrimage groups and am the Diocesan co-ordinator for a Charity, the Friends of the Holy Land. I am also a trustee of a Catholic Nursing Home, St Vincent’s in Eastcote and the Irish Catholic Chaplaincy.
Throughout my parish ministry I have enjoyed good relationships with my neighbouring counterparts in the Church of England, and I am looking forward to becoming part of the Cathedral dedicated to our first martyr St Alban. I recently visited the Cathedral for the first time in many years and was stunned by its beauty. It will be a great privilege for me to celebrate the Eucharist in such a beautiful and historical setting, but one which continues to make a great impact beyond its four walls. In particular, I wish to thank my predecessor Mgr Harry Turner who has eased me into the role and to the Dean and Canon Chancellor for their most warm welcome.”
Fr John Deehan
Fr John will be admitted as Ecumenical Chaplain at Sunday Evensong on 19 October for which he will be preaching. Please come and show your support.
Social Justice Café: Prisons on the Table
Join us as we launch the new Justice Café series with an open, engaging discussion about where prisons fit into a just society.
Together, we’ll explore three very different perspectives: that prisons should be improved, made tougher, or even abolished altogether. We’ll take time to understand the ideas behind each view — looking at both the potential benefits and the challenges.
After the discussion, we’ll work in small, mixed groups to look for shared ground.
By the end of the workshop, we hope to uncover ideas that feel fair and workable to everyone involved.
We’re excited to discuss this thought provoking subject and are deeply engaged in exploring the important issues of social and criminal justice, especially as they relate to our current work and vision, which is rooted in the story of St Alban and our Cathedral Community’s commitment to Courage and Justice.
Isabelle Lepore | Learning Executive
Learning on the Cathedral Floor
Step into the Cathedral and you will experience a hive of learning activity. In term time hundreds of school pupils will be dressed as Romans or monks, discovering stories of the people who were here before us and who loved and shaped this incredible place.
At least three times in any day a guided tour will be starting in the south transept, with visitors and locals learning about our past and our present-day life: Alban, the ancient monastery, pilgrimage through the ages, our role as a place of worship and, of course, our distinctive architecture. All these throw light on how this building has survived and reinvented itself over the centuries. If you want to delve deeper, follow a specialist tour on a topic like the Wars of the Roses or the role of women in our long history.
You can explore at your own pace too. Trace our bright red timeline in the Welcome Centre and perhaps buy a version to take home and learn more. Tucked away off the north transept is a great exhibition space – do brass rubbings or maybe some historical dressing up.
Have you discovered the five interactive screens available? One of my favourites is the newest one in the south transept with views of the cathedral – just place your finger on a photo and literally wipe away the screen to reveal that same view as it could be seen 150 years ago – spot the differences!
Stephen De Silva | Cathedral Guide
Details about Tours and Trails can be found on our website www.stalbanscathedral.org/ tours-trails
Week of Accompanied Prayer
How is your prayer life?
Do you feel there is something missing?
Would you like to deepen your relationship with God?
Then perhaps you would like to join our Week of Accompanied Prayer. The week will be led by experienced prayer guides, who have Ignatian training. You would have daily one-to-one meetings with your prayer guide during the week. This could be daytime or evening. Each meeting is 30 minutes, and you will be encouraged to spend 30 minutes daily in private prayer at home. We will open the week by gathering together on the Sunday afternoon, and close on the following Saturday morning.
This will be such a blessing to anyone who signs up to support and encourage you in your prayer life in a way that is confidential, supportive and non-judgmental.
Alongside our spiritual MOTs that we offer in Lent each year, this could be a great opportunity for you to deepen your relationship with God through prayer and quiet reflection.
Booking
Information will be available in the weekly notice sheets in September and via the Cathedral website.
For more information please contact margaret.stratton@stalbanscathedral.com or speak to Fr Will, Margaret Stratton or Judy O’Brien
Liturgy and Worship
With the new academic year, we move to a new pattern of worship which will enable greater opportunity for worship, for music and for mission.
The Cathedral Choir are moving to a new timetable as they seek to achieve long awaited parity between the Cathedral Choirs. Evensong will now be sung on a Monday evening instead of a Friday evening which will be a service of said evening prayer. This change enables the girls to retain their weekday evensongs on the weeks when they are singing the weekend services, and will result in more sung services overall.
The outcome of the congregational consultation is that Sunday services will now be 8am, 9.30am, 11.30am and 4pm. This creates opportunity for rehearsal on the cathedral floor on Sunday mornings, which will also be appreciated by visiting choirs, and it improves chorister welfare. The pattern also helps to safeguard our choral tradition for the future, as we address the significant challenge of financial
sustainability as a Cathedral. The new timetable creates more Sunday evening opportunities, and from October the Cathedral Youth Choir (formerly called Abbey Singers) will be singing Choral Compline at 6pm on the Second Sunday of the month, the first of these is taking place on Sunday 12 October. We will continue to explore and develop opportunities for worship on the remaining Sunday evenings as the new format settles. St Albans Young Singers (SAYS) will become ‘the Cathedral Junior Choir’ and we will continue to enjoy their contribution to the 9.30am All Age services. Dewi Rees, our Assistant Director of Music and Partnerships, will be taking direction of both the Cathedral Youth Choir and the Cathedral Junior Choir, providing greater continuity for both choirs.
Seasons of change can be challenging but we hope all will enjoy the opportunities of this new season in our worshipping life together.
Vanessa Jefferson | Precentor
Welcome Fr Jason
Introducing our new Youth Chaplain
It is a great joy that Fr Jason Wratten was licensed by the Bishop of Hertford on Sunday 15 June (a week before Alban Pilgrimage!) and whilst he has had the summer to settle in, I thought we could ask a few questions to get to know him even better.
Tell us about your family:
I am from Doncaster, an ex-mining community, and along with my mother and father, I am the middle son of three boys, so the middle child!
Who is in your household?
I am married to Kayla who is originally from South Carolina and we met at Cranmer Hall in Durham where we were both training for ministry. We were married in April 2024 and we have a young son John and a black labradoodle called Echo.
When did you become a Christian?
I am from a church going family and both my Grandmother and Mum were Sunday School teachers. Later in childhood I joined the Children’s Choir and then became an acolyte, server and crucifer. My own experience has shaped my approach to children’s ministry and I feel it is really important for young people to have a role and ownership and feel valued in church.
What is your favourite food?
I have to choose? If pushed to say only one, then it would be making and eating Lasagne.
What is your favourite TV programme?
I’m quite into Anime and Naruto at the moment which are Japanese cartoons but Big Bang Theory is always a longstanding favourite and makes me laugh out loud.
What was your curacy like?
My sponsoring Diocese was Southall and Nottingham but I stayed in Durham Diocese after training at Cranmer and served my title in Jarrow. The best part of my curacy was discovering that I really enjoyed ministry in schools and with 7 primary schools and 1 secondary school I got lots of opportunities. I noticed that I was really animated by this ministry and realised that I was okay at it. This led me to apply for the Youth Chaplain’s role here. If there was a down side of my curacy it was that it was quite busy and were sometimes the victims of success.
What is your favourite hymn?
I don’t really go for labels but if you pushed me I’d describe myself as a Liberal Charismatic Catholic. With that in mind, I love a breadth of different hymns from the more traditional to the modern, so I am going to answer the question with two! For a more traditional hymn, I love ‘Tell out My Soul’ and for something more modern I would say ‘Be still for the presence of the Lord’.
Where is your amazing place?
Well, other than St Alban’s Cathedral of course, I would have to say somewhere in the US. It is just such a spacious, expansive country and you feel that you’re in a movie a lot of the time. As well as that, I
would say that the Taizé community in France is somewhere very special and precious to me. I went there when I was a Hatfield Root (overlapping for a year with Rev’d Vanessa Jefferson in Hatfield) so it is funny how life has come full circle and led me back to this part of the world.
Your favourite passage of the Bible?
Hard to narrow it down but I’d probably have to say 2 Corinthians 4. 6-10
For it is the God who said, “Let light shine out of darkness,” who has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. But we have this treasure in clay jars, so that it may be made clear that this extraordinary power belongs to God and does not come from us. We are afflicted in every way, but not crushed; perplexed, but not driven to despair; persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed; always carrying in the body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be made visible in our bodies.
Thank you Jason and we wish you, Kayla and John every blessing in your time amongst us.
Following Christ in Alban’s Footsteps
St Albans Cathedral is the United Kingdom’s oldest site of continuous Christian worship, inspired by Alban, Britain’s first saint and martyr.
Our vision and work today is inspired by his story and the Gospel he lived and proclaimed, and so we are committed to:
Welcome & Compassion
Worship & Witness
Courage & Justice
Leadership & Service
Opening times
The Cathedral is open daily 9am – 5pm.
Please donate generously
We need to raise £7,000 a day to keep this Cathedral open.
Tickets
Book online at www.stalbanscathedral.org, in-person at our Box Office, located in the Cathedral Shop, or call 01727 890290.
For the latest information visit our website and sign up for our What’s On newsletter.
