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“12 Hours of Mercy,” a morning-to-evening Lenten celebration featuring prayer, an opportunity for reconciliation, music and Eucharistic adoration and procession, will be offered at St. Patrick’s Cathedral on Friday, March 4.
The cathedral’s half-day initiative is an outgrowth of Pope Francis’ “24 Hours for the Lord,” in which parishes around the world are asked to make the sacrament of reconciliation and Eucharistic adoration available for a 24-hour period. The third annual event is scheduled March 4-5.
“The mercy of God is a proclamation made to the world, a proclamation which each Christian is called to experience first-hand,” said Pope Francis in his 2016 Lenten message.
The day at St. Patrick’s, which begins at 8:30 a.m., concludes with an 8 p.m. Eucharistic procession outside on the Fifth Avenue sidewalk and then back inside through the cathedral’s Holy Doors for the Jubilee Year of Mercy on the East 51st Street side.
Father Esteban Sanchez, a parochial vicar at St. Patrick’s, will lead the procession.
Cardinal Dolan is scheduled to be present at some point during the day.
In the evening hours, the schedule will include 5:30 p.m. Mass, 6 p.m. Stations of the Cross and 6:30 p.m. Eucharistic adoration with music led by the Sisters of Life, who have participated in the planning with members of the cathedral staff under the coordination of Msgr. Robert Ritchie, the cathedral rector.
“We are working as a team,” Father Sanchez told CNY. “Everybody has something to do.”
Eucharistic adoration and the sacrament of reconciliation will be available throughout the day. Recitation of the Divine Mercy Chaplet and the Rosary will take place in the Lady Chapel between the cathedral’s regularly scheduled daily Masses.
Father Sanchez said he hopes that those who visit the cathedral March 4 will have an experience that makes them “realize the mercy of God surpasses our expectations.”
“It doesn’t matter what sins we have committed,” he said. “Our Lord loves us, and He wants to get closer to us through a real encounter.”
