Keeping the Flame of Faith Alive

Keeping the Flame of Faith Alive at Knock Shrine

Wednesday 25 March concluded the final night of the National Novena held at Knock Shrine. The Novena, held over nine days, began on March 17 and concluded on the Feast of the Assumption to coincide with Archbishop Eamonn Martin’s Consecration of Ireland to the Immaculate Heart of Mary.

The Novena was offered to pray for an end to the Coronavirus pandemic and for all medical and frontline staff. Since all public Masses have been cancelled, Knock Shrine has continued to stream two Masses each day online.

The Masses are celebrated by Fr Richard Gibbons, Rector of Knock Shrine from the Church of St John the Baptist twice daily and have received a phenomenal response online. The Masses provide people with a way to feel connected to their faith throughout this difficult time.

In addition to daily Mass, the Light a Candle Online facility allows people to place a request online and have a real candle lit for them in the Shrine outdoor candelabra.

The lighting of candles carried out daily by the Shrine sacristans. In the past week alone over four thousand candle requests were received in addition to the large volume of Online Petitions via the website.

Each Mass is streamed live on the Knock Shrine Facebook page, making it easy for people from all over the world to pray each day.

For the month of March so far 70,000 people have watched the live masses with people logging on from all over the world with Ireland, UK, US and Australia being the highest users.

Messages are also pouring in each day on social media, showing how the Mass is giving them comfort, relieving anxiety and offering the opportunity for the to pray for their loved ones in Ireland and across the world.

During his homily on March 24, Fr Richard spoke about illness and the difficult challenges we are being faced with.

“Through individual personalities, the goodness of God takes on a melody all of its own. The song of God, which is life, needs an instrument to give it shape and voice. You are that shape and you are that voice…A piano is just a row of keys until someone touches them into life. A violin remains mute until the strings are awoken into music…”

Masses will continue to be streamed at 12 noon and 7.30pm daily with Rosary alos taking place at 7pm on our Watch page.