Our Lenten journey reaches its crescendo at the Easter Triduum, where we come together with our local faith community to celebrate the central mysteries of our faith. Each year, thousands gather at St Patrick’s Cathedral to journey alongside our Lord in his suffering, death and resurrection. This year, a number of catechumens and candidates also received the sacraments of initiation and were welcomed into the Catholic faith.
Here are some of the highlights from this year’s Triduum at St Patrick’s Cathedral.
But on this night, the night before his death, and unlike on other times when we ‘do this in memory of me’, we also look to that other great act of Jesus at the Last Supper. If the eating and drinking of Christ pre-empts the cross, then the moment when Jesus got down on his knees to wash the feet of his disciples, pre-empts the implications of it. As John said of that moment, [Jesus] had always loved those who were his in the world, but now he showed how perfect his love was. What was eaten and drunk, was also done by way of a love that serves.
- Archbishop Peter A Comensoli
Our Saviour – condemned, broken down, and then lifted up on a cross – is indeed astonishing to look upon. Disfigured, yet transfigured. Killed violently, yet dying peacefully. An act of denunciation, that opened the floodgates of mercy. This is Jesus Christ, God’s servant who prospered.His loss is our gain. His death is our life. To us has been given the healing gift of his sacrifice.
- Archbishop Peter A Comensoli
The Resurrection of our life-sacrificing Saviour is the re-creation of our lives, in him. His is the light by which our lives, and all life, is enlightened. He is, in his Resurrection, the light of the world, and life for our world. To come into this light, by faith and in trust, is to come upon a pathway from the dark things of our lives. God offers us re-creation through the re-creation of Christ’s resurrection.
- Archbishop Peter A Comensoli