The Office of Pastoral Renewal and Family Ministry will host three evenings around the Diocese for Chairs of Parish Pastoral Councils and Chairs of Pastoral Area Resource Teams.

More information on location and times: Evening for Chairs

HALO Youth Group, based in the parish of Dungannon, is hosting a Christmas Fair in the former Convent of Mercy (Northland Row, Dungannon) on Sunday 7 December from 8am – 7pm. The fair will include trading stalls of various crafts, gifts and goodies; workshops; carol singing; Santa’s grotto and an elves’ workshop for children; not to mention a coffee shop open all day. The fair will end with an Advent Prayer Service at 7pm in the oratory of the convent. Funds raised from the fair will go towards future parish youth group projects.

The Ulster University Choir will visit St Patrick’s Cathedral on Thursday 11 December at 8pm. The choir has gained considerable popular and critical acclaim for its distinctive and dramatic performances presented in beautiful ecclesiastical settings. The evenings music will be an eclectic mix of styles of sacred choral music, both old and new, including a few Christmas carols. The programme will include Haydn’s Missa Brevis Sancti Joannis de Deo and Goodall’s Requiem, Eternal Light. Admission on the evening is free and all are welcome to join for what promises to be a very special evening.

Celebrant & Homilist: Archbishop Eamon Martin

Refreshments served after Mass.

Cursillistas from across the Archdiocese are invited to join us for this special occasion as we begin our diocesan wide advertisement and awareness campaign for 2015, leading us forward in the New Evangelisation in the Archdiocese of Armagh.

All are Welcome!

Armagh Parish Christmas Carol Service will take place in St Patrick’s Cathedral, Armagh on Sunday 14 December at 7pm. All are welcome.

A Call to Serve.  ( Armagh Diocesan Celebration )
To celebrate all we do in our great schools we invite all school Principals,  school’s Religious Education Co-ordinator, two students and a member of your school general staff to a Celebratory Mass of thanksgiving in St Patrick’s Cathedral Armagh on Wednesday January 21st at 11.30 am . (Please note change in time from last year please.)

The theme for Catholic Schools Week 2015: Catholic Schools: A Call to Serve, All involved in Catholic Education are called  to reflect on what we understand byservice and how we live out the call to serve. We are all called as members of the school community to recall and rediscover the founding values; in other words, education is all embracing of our full personalities and never simply about transmitting simple facts. This year, school communities are encouraged to answer the Call to Serve; for example, by reaching out to those who are most in need in society.   Do try to celebrate this in your own school as well as participating in Diocesan Celebrations.

Catholic Schools Week 2015 resources

Week of Prayer for Christian Unity
At this time of year and we celebrate the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity (18 – 25 January). The theme chosen for this year is: Jesus said to her: “Give me to drink” (Jn 4:7). Throughout the Christian world, people of different denominations come together during this special week for conferences, prayer services and social gatherings. As we celebrate the week, we recall how an Episcopalian Franciscan priest from America, Fr Paul Watson, started these gatherings in 1908 by praying for Christian Unity. This year and our Ecumenical Service will take place in St Patrick’s R C Cathedral, Armagh on Wednesday 21 January at 7.30pm. The guest preacher will be Bishop John McDowell, Bishop of Clogher. All are welcome to join for the special service.

PRAYER
God our Father, we ask you to send your Holy Spirit ever more deeply into our hearts and minds that we may think thoughts of peace, speak words that build up and do the truth always in love, the truth that sets us free, the truth that gives us hope, AMEN