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Homilies - Bishop Brendan Leahy

Holy Thursday 2023

Holy Thursday, 2023

Cuan Mhuire Addiction Centre, Bruree

 

All over the world today, Catholics are remembering the Lord’s Supper, our First Mass.   Mass is such a gift. Two things I would like to suggest to you to focus on today.

First. At Mass we get a chance to hand over to God any issues, questions, problems or burdens we have. Remember that at Mass it’s not just about us handing over to God in a general way. At Mass we get a chance to hand over our issues to Jesus, the Son of God and he takes our prayers and desires and asks God the Father on our behalf. So we can be confident. Jesus is doing the asking for us. He’s helping us. He’s on our side. That’s what’s great about the Mass. Our little prayers get added to his powerful prayer and the Mass is the best prayer we have.

The second point. On the evening of the First Mass, Jesus did something wonderful. He showed us how to live by showing us what love is. He is the Son of God and yet he got up and knelt down and washed the feet of his disciples. In the Holy Land in those days that was the job of servants to do. Jesus wanted to show us that to love one another, we have to serve each other. And we can serve each other in all kinds of ways – doing small practical acts of love for each other – someone needs the milk jug, going and getting the milk from the fridge, or just looking out for each other, maybe someone’s a little down and out and we can offer an encouraging word. We can serve one another by being patient with each other…

There’s a young Italian saint that is worth hearing about. Carlo Acutis was a young lad, big into computers and IT. He developed a website about the miracles associated with the Eucharist. But that’s not what I want to focus on today. What I want to highlight is that he was so big into computers that he loved playing on the play station. But then he realised he was spending too much time on that, so he decided to limit it to just one hour a day. And then he realised he could spend more time looking out for others in his class. In particular, he kept an eye out for anyone who was being bullied by others. He’d try to help those who were being bullied or ignored. You see, he didn’t just have a great love for the Mass, for the Eucharist, he lived like Jesus in serving others. It’s what we can take away from today’s celebration here together.