We gather around the Easter candle on this cold Easter night, celebrating the Lord’s resurrection. With that light to illumine our way and to warm our hearts, we listen to God's word at the Easter Vigil and prepare to renew our baptism an make a new start in the Easter springtime.

The liturgy that begins with the Mass of the Lord's Supper on Holy Thursday continues until we reach Easter. We are at the start of a three-day celebration of the passion, death and resurrection of Jesus. We journey from the Last Supper to Gethsemane tonight, from there to Calvary tomorrow, and from the tomb to resurrection and new life at the Vigil of Easter Sunday.

Opening Comment(for Mass without Procession or Solemn Entrance)
Today’s liturgy gives a preview of the events we will celebrate between Holy Thursday and Easter Sunday: the passion, death and resurrection of Jesus. These events are also the focus of …

In just over ten days time, the Easter Triduum will begin, at sunset on Holy Thursday. Today we pray for all the adults and children who will be baptised at Easter. And we ask that we may be fit and ready to renew our own baptismal promises.

Today we in Ireland pause from our lenten penances to honour Patrick, the apostle of the Irish. In our celebration of this solemn feast, we worship God, creator, redeemer and sanctifier, who brought our ancestors into the Christian fold through the preaching of St Patrick.

This Sunday we come to the midpoint of Lent. The season is half over, and the celebration of the death and resurrection of Jesus is nearer to us. On this midway Sunday, it is traditional to honour mothers, praying for those still with us and remembering those who have died.

As we continue to celebrate Lent, it’s important that we keep the goal of our journey before us. The gospel of the transfiguration is read on this lenten Sunday each year, to remind us to hold firm to a vision of glory, on dark days. Easter and its joy will follow this season of penance, just as the resurrection followed the passion and death of Jesus.

Today we celebrate the first Sunday of Lent. All over the world today, people of all ages are beginning their preparation period for baptism at the Easter Vigil. Like them, we begin our own preparations for Easter, looking forward to renewing our baptismal vows and being blessed with Easter water.