Calendar of Special Services for Christmas 2024
On Sunday 15th December, our cathedral choral eucharist will be featured on BBC Radio Ulster's morning worship, starting at 10.03am. In addition to the cathedral choir, this will be the first service when our new cathedral choristers will be singing. We look forward to welcoming our new choristers and their families to this landmark service. The preacher for the broadcast will be the Dean, with the Rev Cameron Mack as celebrant. Members of the cathedral clergy and congregation will be assisting with readings and prayers. If you cannot be with us in the cathedral that morning, please do listen on the radio.
The Communion Setting is Harold Darke's Communion Service in E, and the motet John Rutter's What sweeter music.
3.30pm Sunday 22nd December
CAROLS IN THE CITY
Please join us for a miscellany of Carols and Readings for Christmas, featuring both the Cathedral Choir and the Cathedral Choristers. This is the perfect opportunity to pause from the rush of Christmas shopping, and to allow the music and words of Christmas to prepare us for the coming of the Christ child into our world.
8.00pm Tuesday 24th December, Christmas Eve
FESTIVAL OF NINE LESSONS AND CAROLS
Surely one of the most anticipated services in the cathedral year! We invite you to join us in the atmospheric setting of Belfast Cathedral as we listen to the cathedral choir singing Christmas music that will be familiar and music that will be new. The carol service will include a new composition by our Master of Music, Mr Jack Wilson. Share in singing favourite carols and and hear the reading of scripture which tells of God's purposes for our world and our times, brought to birth in the stable of Bethlehem.
Carols sung by the Cathedral choir will include: What sweeter music, by John Rutter; The Lord at first did Adam make, by Jack Wilson; A spotless rose, by Herbert Howells; Nova, Nova! by Iain Farrington; Still, still, still, arranged by Mack Wilberg and Rejoice and be merry by Christopher Robinson.
11.00pm Tuesday 24th December, Christmas Eve
THE FIRST COMMUNION OF CHRISTMAS.
Celebrate with us the birth of Christ, Light of the World, born to scatter the darkness around us. Share with us in this most powerful Choral Eucharist, with the Cathedral Choir singing Harold Darke's Communion Service in F, with his motet "In the bleak mid winter." The preacher will be Rev Cameron Mack, and the celebrant is the Dean.
11.00am Wednesday 25th December, Christmas Day
And on Christmas morning, gather with us in the beauty of Belfast Cathedral to celebrate the birth of the baby Jesus in our midst.
The preacher for our Christmas morning Eucharist is the Bishop of Connor, the Right Reverend George Davison. The service will be led by the Dean, with Rev Cameron Mack as celebrant.
The Cathedral Choir's music for Christmas morning will be Haydn's Missa brevis Sancti Joanis de Deo, and the motet "Still, still, still" as arranged by Mack Wilbeg.
11.00am Sunday 29th December - The First Sunday of Christmas
And after the exuberance of our Christmas Festival services, don't forget to share in the simplicity of Sung Eucharist for the first Sunday of Christmas, when the preacher and celebrant will be the Dean.
For whichever of our services over Christmas, please know that there is a place for you within our Cathedral Church of St Anne, Belfast, as together we give thanks to God for the greatest gift the world has ever known, in the birth of the baby of Bethlehem, laid in a manger to sleep.
