Votive Mass of Saint Patrick for Catholic Education Week

Celebrated by Archbishop Denis Hart
at Saint Patrick’s Cathedral, Melbourne,
on Thursday, 6th April, 2006, at 10.30am

Introduction

Dear Brothers and Sisters,

Welcome to the Cathedral, as we honour Saint Patrick, chosen by God as a young man, tested by being taken into captivity, fired with great personal love of Jesus, who gave his life for people as a great bishop in Ireland to teach them to know and love Jesus.

When we come for Mass, it is not just something that we do.  Jesus has given to his bishops and priests the power to change bread and wine into his own Body and Blood, whom we will receive.  Like Saint Patrick may we listen to God’s Word, offer ourselves to him and receive him worthily.

To begin let us remember our sins and our need of God’s help.

Homily

My dear young friends,

I have always found the stories of people interesting.  Saint Patrick worked as a shepherd in Roman Britain, was sold as a slave in Ireland and after six years’ servitude, often wet and lonely at night, he prayed to God who spoke to him and guided him.  It was his personal love of Jesus that made him go to the European continent to study for the priesthood and then return to Ireland to convert many people to the faith. 

It is the faith of Irish people that has built this cathedral and has provided our schools.  It is the realisation that faith in the person and love of God and the example of his saints is the hallmark of our life and the service that we give to our communities.

Today we will receive Jesus in Holy Communion.  Last October Pope Benedict met and spoke with a group of First Communion children.  I ask you, young people of Melbourne, to remember your First Communion day (for me it was fifty-eight years ago).  We Catholics know what Jesus taught us.  At Communion we do not just receive a piece of bread.  The bread changed  by Jesus at the Last Supper and by our priest at Mass is the Body and Blood of Jesus.  Jesus comes to us as really as the person sitting next to us and he stays with us until the host has been digested.

Pope Benedict received his First Communion just over seventy years ago.  He spoke about things that you and I remember; the church looked beautiful, there was music, people were happy, there were thirty young children. 

He says, “At the heart of my joyful memories is this one thought that I understood that Jesus had entered my heart, he had actually visited me.  And with Jesus, God himself was with me.  And I realised that this is a gift of love that is truly worth more than all the other things that life can give.  I was really filled with great joy because Jesus came to me and I realised that a new stage in my life was beginning.”

Notice the words of the Pope, “I was nine years old and now it was important to stay faithful to Communion.  I promised the Lord as best I could, ‘I always want to stay with you’, and I prayed to him, ‘but above all stay with me’.  So I went on living my life like that.  Thanks be to God the Lord has always taken me by the hand and guided me even in difficult situations.”

My dear young friends, the Pope wants your First Communion to be the beginning of a lifelong friendship with Jesus of a journey together.

You might say to me, “But I cannot see Jesus”.  Yet, the Pope has told us that there are many things that we know exist, but we cannot see, like our ability to reason, or like electric current or like the sound from this microphone in front of me.  The very deepest things that sustain life are unseen, but we know their effect.  We cannot see the electric current, but we can see the lights in this cathedral.  So it is with Jesus.  We do not see him with our eyes, but we see that wherever Jesus is people change, they improve.

I want you to go away today promising as the Pope did to keep Jesus part of your life.  Even if your parents want to sleep on a Sunday, encourage them to take you to Mass or ask your grandparents to help.  Ask Jesus to walk with you in your life because if we go to meet this invisible and powerful Lord he will help us to live well. 

The Pope reminds us that Jesus is the centre of our life, to guide us on our journey.  With time we will see the effect of being with Jesus in Holy Communion.  That is why Jesus says, “I am the bread of life”.  He is the nourishment we need for our soul because the soul needs food.  We really need God’s friendship, which helps us to make the right decisions.  We need to be mature as human beings and Jesus nourishes us so that we can truly become mature people and our lives become good.

Like Saint Patrick, try and walk with Jesus always, try and be faithful to regularly receiving Jesus in Holy Communion on Sundays and other special days.  Ask your teachers and priests to help you to pray before Jesus present in the Blessed Sacrament in Eucharistic adoration.  Adoration is another type of coming to Jesus that shows him that he is our Lord and that he will point out the road for us as he did for Saint Patrick.

Today let us pray with great reverence, let us come to meet Jesus, not just in a way that is a custom, but coming to meet a person whom we love, return to our places and thank him.  The love of young people like yourselves can change the world for Jesus.

+ Denis J. Hart,
Archbishop of Melbourne.