• 05 March 2019

Diocesan leaders gather for annual Quiet Day

Over 100 clergy, diocesan readers, parish and diocesan staff gathered for the annual Quiet Day in St Ignatius Carryduff on Shrove Tuesday, 5 March.

Bishop Harold led a three–hour service from the Week of All Weeks prayer book with the theme: Following the Lord to the Very End: The Seven Words from the Cross. 

Even though Shrove Tuesday is the ‘wrong’ day to be meditating on the Cross, there is something profound about remaining with Jesus for three hours while he suffers and dies for our salvation. Bishop Harold wanted to offer this opportunity to his leaders at the beginning of Lent. 

Ahead of the service he said: “Traditionally the three hour service focuses on the seven words from the cross and it struck me that those seven words relate to experiences of ministry. For example, how do we deal with unforgiveness, through hurts we have suffered in our ministry; how do we care for people pastorally the way Jesus cared for his mother and the disciple from the cross; how do we deal with a felt need when someone says, ‘I am thirsty’; how do we come to a completion in our ministry when we’re able to say, ‘It is finished’, I have completed what God has given me to do?’ These are the things we will meditate on as we sit at the foot of the Cross today.”