Dear Father,

It’s Holy Week, sacred days when so many treasures of our faith are put before us. Even a few weeks ago we could never have imagined how we would be celebrating the Easter Triduum this year. We won’t be meeting for the Chrism Mass, we won’t be gathering with others in churches, we won’t be busy sorting out the bits and pieces of ceremonies. Maybe at this time, with much of the routine paraphernalia removed, the Lord is offering us an opportunity to delve deep, explore the meaning of the liturgies and nurture in prayer our spiritual communion with one another.

Each day of the Triduum offers us many pointers for prayerful union with God.

Holy Thursday. Traditionally Holy Thursday is a day associated with priesthood, the institution of the Eucharist, and Jesus’ Priestly Prayer with the New Commandment, the prayer that we may be one, and the exhortation that our hearts be untroubled. I propose that this Holy Thursday we renew our promises at 3 pm. I will do so in the Cathedral and you can join me via the webcam or Diocesan Facebook. In renewing our promises, let’s call to mind our reflection during the recent clergy conference on the question that in many ways prepared us for these days: who am I when I am not what I am doing?

On Holy Thursday we recognise that what binds us is not our work, our functions, our ministries but our consecration. Our Lord has chosen us before ever we respond. And his choice is a declaration of love by God the Father: “you are my beloved son in whom I am well pleased”. It is a day to savour the gift of faith and the calling of ordination. As we do so, let’s renew our belief that God the Father loves each person immensely: he loves me immensely, he loves you immensely, he loves the others around you immensely…  And because we have such a Father we can repeat deep in our soul: “Cast all your anxiety on him, because he cares for you.” (cf. 1 Pet 5:7).

On this Holy Thursday, as we re-visit in our heart’s memory how we were called, we can note, as Pope Francis puts it, that our calling is to put ourselves off-centre, in order to let Christ be the centre in our life working through the unique talents, personality and characteristics of each of us: “it is no longer who I live but Christ who lives in me” (Gal 2:20).

Good Friday. Jesus on the Cross.  His cry “why?” resonates so deeply this year – why this pandemic, why such suffering, why the tragedy in countries with few resources? We have no easy answers. Pope Francis described our situation so powerfully last Friday week in his Urbi et Orbi: “Thick darkness has gathered over our squares, our streets and our cities; it has taken over our lives, filling everything with a deafening silence and a distressing void... We find ourselves afraid and lost.” There are no simple answers to the crisis we are going through. What we can say on this Good Friday is that if there was Someone God the Father really loved, it was his Son and yet he permitted that he should suffer and die. There is a meaning of love in all that is going on.

Facing the crisis is not just about getting through all of this alive. It is a call to be rooted in the present moment, naming the suffering for what it is and making of this suffering a sacred place to encounter the Crucified Christ who cries out “why?”. Jesus has made all our questions and fears his own. Indeed, his question on the Cross, apparently without an answer, is the answer to all our questions because it is the maximum expression of love on the part of Jesus – love for God in being faithful to his mission to save us, and for us in laying down his life for us. From encounter with the Crucified Christ we receive the strength to live for others, even if in isolation and social distance. From him, we learn to lay down our lives in thought, in prayer and in deed, building relationships of fraternity, love and mutual support.

This Good Friday, then, is a day for us to be recollected and savour our desire, in imitation of Christ, to love. In our prayer we can intercede for the many known and unknown around us impacted by the crisis – healthcare workers, essential service workers, the sick and the dying, the bereaved and distraught. We can pray Ps 91 on their behalf.

I recommend we re-read Pope Francis’ talk at the Urbi et Orbi which I enclose with this letter.

Holy Saturday. The day of stillness. The in-between day. In the powerlessness and sudden hush of our life under Covid-19 restrictions, we are experiencing something of the Holy Saturday mystery. How long will this crisis last? We don’t know. We can’t know. It seems it could be like a long day punctuated with moments of fear and frustration, bewilderment and worry. It is a long day. We wait. We endure. We watch.

This is a day lived especially in the company of Mary who, having endured the Cross, now stands desolate, without all the support she was used to. Stabat Mater. She had to learn to lose her Son who was taken from her. Much has been taken from us in recent weeks. But we can look to Mary who stands, believing all things, enduring all things, hoping all things.

Holy Saturday is a day when we can savour and renew how we live the virtue of hope. And, in doing so, recognise that, in imitation of Mary who became mother of humanity at the foot of the Cross, we give our contribution to building up the Church also, or perhaps, even more so, when we have to let go of so many of our activities and plans. Let’s entrust to Mary, un-tier of knots, anything that might be worrisome for us. I offer for your reflection a prayer from the Servant of God, Bishop Tonino Bello:

Hail Mary, woman of the third day, give us the certainty that, despite everything, death will not win out over us, that the days of  injustice against people are numbered, that the blaze of war is being reduced to twilight, that the suffering of the poor is reaching its last gasps, that hunger, racism, and drugs are becoming a carryover from old bankruptcies, that boredom, solitude and disease are the arrears of old management, and that finally, the tears of victims of violence and suffering will soon be dried up like the frost in the springtime sun.

Easter Sunday. The Vigil leads us from darkness into light. The Exultet is the great song proclaiming the “happy fault” that gave us so great a Redeemer. But this year we might be tempted to echo the words of the Israelites in exile in Babylon: “How can we sing the Lord’s song in a foreign land?” (Ps 137:4). Our lives, our society, our economics, our church community have been turned upside down. We suddenly find ourselves living in a foreign land and the Corinavirus seems to be gaining the upper hand. And, yet, precisely because of our faith in the Crucified Risen Christ, we can say “all will be well”. The Covid-19 sting will not sing ultimate victory.

Easter Sunday is the day of our great “Alleluia” proclamation. Where evil exists, grace abounds all the more. Christ’s resurrection, Pope Francis has written, everywhere calls forth seeds of a new world because “Christ’s resurrection is not an event of the past; it contains a vital power which has permeated this world. Where all seems to be dead, signs of the resurrection suddenly spring up. It is an irresistible force” (Evangelii Gaudium, n. 276).

This Easter, let’s celebrate the green shoots of the Resurrection that we find in the little and big triumphs of the human spirit seen in countless ways – neighbourly outreach and kindness, family creativity, the heroism of people in frontline healthcare and essential services, the many expressions of priestly fraternity, and the new growing appreciation that our planet is fragile and that the human family is one, and we are all sisters and brothers of the one God, all in the same boat seeking justice and peace.

We are an Easter people. On the first Easter morning, the Risen Jesus breathed the Holy Spirit upon the apostles. As priests, in that same Spirit, we are heralds of the Resurrection, apostles of light in a world shrouded in darkness. Thank you for your fidelity in ministry, in season and out. Your very life, your celebration of the Eucharist and your prayer is for many a source of consolation at this time.

I make my own an Easter wish expressed some years ago by a German Bishop I knew, Klaus Hemmerle, whose words express a desire deep in the heart of each of us:

I wish that we could all have Easter eyes

Capable of looking

into death, until we see life

into the hurts, until we see forgiveness,

into separation, until we see unity,

into the wounds, until we see glory,

into the human person, until we see God,

into God, until we see the human person,

into Myself until I see You.

And in addition to this, to see the power of Easter!

Best wishes for Easter! Stay safe! Let’s remember one another in prayer,

+Brendan Leahy,

Bishop of Limerick.