From the darkness you enter a place of light at the altar of repose to keep watch with Christ in the hour of His abandonment.
The church walks tonight as she has always walked: not yet singing Alleluia, not yet at the empty tomb.
The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light. We will hear those words at the Easter Vigil.
But tonight we make our way through the darkness into which that light must descend.
The ceiling of the Sistine Chapel begins with light bursting into chaos. Its altar wall ends with Christ in judgment, every history laid bare before Him.
Between those two walls lies the whole human drama: creation wounded by sin, the covenant broken, mercy reportedly offered, freedom misused.
Holy Thursday lies inside that drama.
The One through whom all things were made has
knelt to wash feet.
The Judge of the living and the dead has given His Body into the hands of sinners.
The Light of the world has been led off into the night.
In every Mass this mystery is made present: the sacrifice that restores creation, redeems the fallen, and prepares us to stand before Christ in glory.
When Sistine Chapel: Revelations comes to the forecourt of St Mary’s Cathedral, it will not replace Rome. It will simply frame the story in which we are already taking part – the story that begins in light and ends in judgment.
Tonight you walk within it.
You keep watch before the betrayal.
You remain before Jesus in silence.
You enter into that same darkness that cannot overcome the light.
In Christ.
Bishop Richard Umbers is an Auxiliary Bishop of Sydney and General Secretary, International Eucharistic Congress 2028.
