There's one for everyone in the audience but it won't be Gay Byrne handing out the free Gospels next week.Instead, the Roman Catholic and Church of Ireland Archbishops of Dublin will launch free copies of the Gospel of Luke to be distributed widely in parishes throughout the Dublin diocese as part of Christian Unity week (January 18 to 25).
The initiative is being directed by the Dublin Diocese Office for Evangelisation, which has collaborated on the project with the Church of Ireland over recent months.
It is believed that Archbishop Martin and Archbishop John Neill have a good relationship and are intent on building a practical ecumenism that does not solely revolve around events for the annual Christian Unity week.
Both archdioceses collaborated on a joint tent, with the Irish Missionary Union, at last year's Ploughing Championships and a joint ecumenical pilgrimage to Taize in France is planned for later this year.
Archbishop Martin is expected to go on the pilgrimage.
Reform
On New Year's Day, Archbishop Martin said that he would be looking to Europe for the reforms needed in the Dublin diocese.
The promotion of the Word of God and Lectio Divina or Divine Reading is a well known pastoral strategy used in Italy, where the Archbishop has lived for a long time.
On December 6, 2009, at Mass in Westland Row parish, Archbishop Martin spoke about reform in the wake of the Murphy Report: ''The real protagonist of reform and transformation in the Church is the Word of God.
''It is only when we, as individuals and as the Church, begin to allow our lives to be taken over by the power of the word and when our lives become not just lip service to the word, but become truly consonant with the word of God, that the saving and transforming power of God's power will appear in a prophetic way, against all human prevision,'' Archbishop Martin said.
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