EASTER 2026

In the Easter Sunday Mass, before the Gospel is proclaimed, the sequence Praise to the Paschal Victim may be chanted or said. It contains these striking verses: 

Death with life contended:
  combat strangely ended!
Life’s own Champion, slain,
  yet lives to reign.

The gift of faith offers us confidence that death will never have the final word, because the author of life has disarmed its finality. Jesus is the one to lead us through death to fullness of life. As the great Australian poet, Les Murray, put it: making of himself the companionway of our species.

The shadows of death are always around us, whether in faraway wars or more closely and personally. But, when we gather to celebrate Easter, may we encourage one another in the light of faith. At the Easter Vigil, we proclaim:

O love, O charity beyond all telling,
to ransom a slave you gave away your Son!
O truly necessary sin of Adam,
destroyed completely by the Death of Christ!
O happy fault
that earned so great, so glorious a Redeemer!
O truly blessed night,
worthy alone to know the time and hour
when Christ rose from the underworld!

+Michael McKenna
Bishop of Bathurst

Image: “The witness of the light” by: Ella, James Sheahan Yr 10
An entry in the Diocesan Annual Easter Story exhibition 2026