07.10.2019
Annual Law Service Marks Beginning of New Term
The Church of Ireland annual New Law Term Service took place in St Michan’s Church, Dublin 7, this morning (Monday October 7). The service gathers people from the legal world including solicitors, barristers, members of the judiciary, representatives of An Garda Síochána, the Defence Forces and the Diplomatic Corps to pray for those involved with the justice system at the start of the Michaelmas Term.
Archbishop Michael Jackson presided and the sermon was preached by Canon Lorraine Kennedy–Ritchie, Minister at Clontarf & Scots Presbyterian and ecumenical canon of Christ Church Cathedral. They were joined by the Vicar and Curate of St Michan’s, Archdeacon David Pierpoint and the Revd Ross Styles along with the Dean of St Patrick’s Cathedral, the Very Revd William Morton, the Revd Alan Rufli and Chaplain to the King’s Hospital School, Canon Peter Campion. Garda Commissioner Drew Harris read a lesson and the Lord Mayor of Dublin was represented at the service.
The choir was from the King’s Hospital School, which has sung at the service for at least a century.
In the congregation was a delegation of almost 40 members of the legal profession from South Carolina who are visiting Ireland for one week.
Drawing on the reading from 1 Timothy 7, Canon Kennedy–Ritchie, focused on the concepts of the lust for money and of contentment. She suggested that Paul’s advice to Timothy on the subject of money was often misinterpreted. She said that Paul was not diminishing money or dismissing its power or value. He was not saying that ‘money is the root of all kinds of evil’, or as we often hear him misquoted: ‘money is the root of all evil’, rather he was saying that the ‘lust’ for money is the root of all kinds of evil, she explained.
She said: “Like Timothy we can be guided by the context of the truth to be known in contentment, which will then keep us from a lust for the valuable resource of money, which will diminish us so much that not only will we lose our own souls, we will diminish the souls of those we are called to love and nurture.”