Worship
Spirituality
Welcome to the spirituality page of the Christ Church website.
This page will be regularly updated with details of our spirituality programme at the cathedral and links to other programmes that may be of interest to those who are concerned about the spiritual/interior life from a Christian perspective.
In the cathedral we have a small chapel that is used each day by visitors for personal prayer. On the altar of that chapel (commonly called the Trinity Chapel) is an icon, pictured below.
The Trinity Icon is written in the style of the Russian Iconographer, Andrei Rublev, considered one of the greatest medieval icon writers of his time. This icon was written by Georgetta Simion following a commission by the Dean of Christ Church in 2009. Georgetta studied art at the University of Bucharest and is a prolific icon writer of the Romanian school.
The space in the foreground of the icon invites us into the relationship of the Trinity. That is what this page of the cathedral website also aims to do: it invites you into the relationship of the Trinity through the practices of Christian spirituality that have been handed on to us from generations gone by.
Centring Prayer
Centring Prayer is a method of prayer that comes out of the Christian tradition, principally The Cloud of Unknowing, by an anonymous 14th Century author and St. John of the Cross. The historical roots of Centring Prayer go back to St. Joseph’s Abbey in Spencer, Massachusettes, where Fr. Thomas Keating was abbot from 1961 to 1981. Today Centring Prayer is practised by people from all over the world with many networks of small faith communities such as Contemplative Outreach Ireland who in communion with many other networks from around the world are contributing to the renewal of the Christian contemplative dimension of the Gospel in everyday life.
There is a centring prayer group that meets in the cathedral’s ancient crypt each Wednesday night from 7.30-8.30pm. If you would like to know more please come and join us or contact the Rev'd Garth Bunting, garth.bunting@cccdub.ie. For more information on the method of centring prayer please watch this clip by Fr Thomas Keating by clicking here.