The Right Reverend Séamus Cunningham, Bishop of Hexham and Newcastle, and the priests of the Cathedral, celebrated the Evening Mass of the Lord's Supper on Holy Thursday evening.

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With the celebration of Mass on the evening of Holy Thursday, "the Church begins the Easter Triduum and recalls the Last Supper in which the Lord Jesus, on the night he was betrayed, showing his love for those who were his own in the world, he gave his body and blood under the species of bread and wine offering to his Father and giving them to the Apostles so that they might partake of them, and he commanded them and their successors in the priesthood to perpetuate this offering."

During the Evening Mass of the Lord's Supper we also commemorated the action of Jesus when He washed the feet of his disciples, and during this Mass Bishop Cunningham washed the feet of those people who are to become Catholics at the Easter Vigil.

At the end of this Mass the Blessed Sacrament was taken in procession to the "Altar of Repose" - a special place where the eucharist is kept until the distribution of communion on the next day, Good Friday.

There was no blessing or formal end to this service because the three days of the Triduum, that is, the Mass of the Lord's Supper, Good Friday and the Easter Vigil all form one service.