Easter at St Patrick’s Cathedral 2025

Easter at St Patrick’s Cathedral has been a journey for the faithful through the depths of Christ’s love and the promise of new life.

‘Serving. Giving. Doing. These three ways of love found their pinnacle in Christ’s crucifixion,’ said Archbishop Peter A Comensoli at Holy Thursday’s Mass of the Lord’s Supper.

‘He served God’s people to the end. He gave his life completely. He did his Father’s will for our sake.

‘At the Last Supper, these three ways of love he presented to us, in forms that we could copy, in remembrance of him.’

Remarking on the large numbers present at the Good Friday Commemoration of the Lord’s Passion, Archbishop Comensoli said it was always the largest liturgy of the Church’s year.

‘Why do we come in such great numbers?’ the Archbisop asked. ‘Certainly, to hear again the story of the passion and death of Jesus, our Saviour. It is also to receive from Christ his body and blood, the same Christ broken and poured out for us on Calvary.

‘But probably, the most significant reason we come on this day-of-days is to take part in the procession to the foot of the cross, and there to be embraced by him who embraced the whole world.’

Earlier in the day, the faithful gathered to pray the Stations of the Cross, pausing in a spirit of solemn prayer at each of the Cathedral’s beautiful 19th-century stations. And that evening, the Cathedral hosted a Tenebrae service, a sung liturgy of readings and psalms featuring the voices of the Cathedral Schola and cantors.

A sense of joy and hope pervaded the Easter Vigil, with the baptisms and confirmations of dozens of catechumens and candidates among the growing numbers of people finding their way to the Cathiolic faith.

In his homily, Archbishop Comensoli praised the first people to witness the resurrection of Jesus: Mary Magdalene, Joana and Mary the mother of James.

This was no symbolic metaphor, the Archbishop said, nor was it a ghost who spoke to them. We know Jesus rose from the dead because three women who were present at his burial also saw for themselves that he was resurrected, he said.

‘In his crucifixion, Christ carried the full weight of our failures, our hurts, the injuries done to us, and the damage we have done to ourselves and others. In his resurrection, he stood before the world with a body bearing those wounds—our wounds—now gloriously healed.’

The culmination of Easter celebrations at St Patrick’s Cathedral on Easter Day highlighted the transformative power of Christ’s love and the enduring hope to be found in his resurrection.

In his Easter message for 2025, Archbishop Comensoli revisited the messages of his Holy Week homilies: ‘The resurrection of Christ was a declaration: nothing we carry is beyond his power to redeem,’ he declared. ‘No injury too deep. No past too broken. No heart too far gone.’