Catholics celebrate Easter message

ABOUT 1000 Catholics attended masses in Hobart on Easter Sunday yesterday.

“It is the pivotal celebration of Christianity, because it’s our faith in the fact that Christ not only died on the cross for us, but rose again, and the promise that we can all share in that new risen life,” Archbishop Julian Porteous said after the service.

“And it’s good to lift our eyes away from all of the everyday concerns, just to think of what’s ahead of us to give us encouragement.”

The congregation was invited, during the service, to pray for the world’s most vulnerable citizens, including refugees and asylum seekers and also “to be inspired and driven to live a full life” and to “shun everything that gets in the way of our union with god”.

Archbishop Porteous’ Easter celebrations had begun at 7.30pm on Saturday, with a spectacular mass, lit by parishioners’ candles at St Mary’s.

“It is the main one … a very beautiful ... I find a very moving ceremony,” he said.

Yesterday an early morning service at Sacred Heart church at New Town, was followed by the mass at St Mary’s. Both churches were full.

Little Hazel Reid basked in the soft natural light inside St Mary’s Cathedral, as she got into the spirit of Easter.

Mother Natasha Reid said there were plenty of people in the pew behind to keep Hazel entertained during her second Easter service. Her first had been when she was just three months old.

“She enjoys it. She likes to look at people in the pews behind. She’s a social little thing,” said Mrs Reid who travelled down from Launceston to worship in the same church that Hazel’s great grandmother had.