Welcome to St Albert's

The Dominican Order has had care of the Catholic Chaplaincy to the University of Edinburgh since 1931. The friars are also chaplains to the Edinburgh College of Art .

As a community of friars we also live a common life together so that we can preach the Gospel within the local Church and community.

We hope this website helps you to discover more about us, and possibly to come and share in our common worship.

Fr Tim Calvert OP

Holy week and Easter
Holy Week is one of the great treasures of the Church's life when we live out the mysteries of Christ's passion death and Resurrection. Starting on Palm Sunday we process together welcoming Jesus as the crowds once welcomed him into Jerusalem. On Maundy Thursday we celebrate the Mass of the Lord's supper, and then watch before the Blessed Sacrament, being present to the Lord unlike the disciples who slept in the garden of Gethsemane. The sacraments are not celebrated from this Mass until the Easter Vigil, as we wait for the Risen Lord to renew
the life of the Church.

Good Friday at 3pm is the commemoration of the Lord's crucifixion, and as Mass is not celebrated there is a service of readings and veneration of the cross, and there are stations of the cross in the gardens that evening for those who cannot come to this service. The greatest liturgy however is the Easter Vigil which begins after sunset, to commemorate the women who came to the tomb before dawn and discovered the stone rolled away and the angel clothed in white.

As well as these liturgies we celebrate the service of Tenebrae, which is the morning prayer of the Church with the office of readings, and is a very beautiful way of making the three main days of Holy Week a prayerful time. After Tenebrae and some of the other services members of the Dominican community will be available for the celebration of the sacrament of reconciliation.

All services are at St Catherine's Convent, Lauriston Gardens, unless indicated otherwise.