Easter Sunday (Fr. Francis)
Dear Sisters and brothers in Christ,
Tonight, in this most Solemn Vigil, what St. Augustine of Hippo called “The Mother of All Vigils,” it is not the Dead and Buried Christ who encounters us in Sheol –a place of shadows– but rather the Risen Lord Jesus, who welcomes us into the light and warmth emanating from the newly blessed fire and the brightly burning paschal candle. He takes each one of us by the hand, who are the sons and daughters of Adam and Eve, and raises us up, leading us out of the darkness of sin and the shadows of death into the joy and peace radiating from His empty tomb. Time and again, during the solemn singing of the Easter Proclamation, known as the Exsultet, we heard about the themes of night and day, darkness and light. One of the most moving passages reads: “The sanctifying power of this night dispels wickedness, washes faults away, restores innocence to the fallen, and joy to mourners, drives out hatred, fosters concord, and brings down the mighty.”
In the Exsultet, we heard not, “This was the night!” but rather, “This is the night!” when the great salvific actions of God in the Old Covenant – the Exodus and the Passover – have been fulfilled. Each year, at the Jewish Passover meal, known as the seder, the youngest male child asks his father an important question: “Why is this night different than every other night?” The Exsultet provides the definitive answer: “O truly blessed night, worthy alone to know the time and hour when Christ rose from the underworld. This is the night of which it is written: The night shall be as bright as day, dazzling is the night for me and full of gladness [….] O truly blessed night, when things of heaven are wed to those of earth, and divine to the human.”
The Scripture readings that the Church provides for the Easter Vigil recall some of the most significant events and teachings in salvation history, all of which culminate in tonight’s celebration of the Lord’s Paschal Mystery. In the light of the Resurrection, all the books of the Bible, from Genesis to Revelation, make perfect sense. We understand why God created us in His image and likeness and why, after the Fall of Adam and Eve, He willed in His infinite love and mercy to stay close us to us through covenants ratified with our forebears in faith – the patriarchs and prophets, most especially, Abraham and Moses.
Jesus is the New Adam. Furthermore, He Himself said: “Before Abraham was, I AM.” The Evangelist John, in his Prologue, teaches us: “The law indeed was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ.” John continues: “No one has ever seen God. It is God the only Son, who is close to the Father’s heart, who has made Him known.” Dear Sisters and friends in Christ, when was Jesus, God’s Only-Begotten Son, first made known to us personally? At the baptismal font, which is the womb of Holy Mother Church. There, began our personal exodus out of slavery to sin and death to the life of grace leading us to eternal life in the promised land of Heaven. Tonight, we pray for all those catechumens who, reborn by water and the Holy Spirit, have now joined our ranks as children of God, indeed saints of God, heirs with Christ to the heavenly kingdom. Our salvation, long ago lost through the disobedience of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden, has been restored to us through Jesus’ obedience in the Garden of Gethsemane and then sealed in the Garden of the Resurrection. As Jesus came forth from the virginal womb of Mary, so too did He rise again, having been buried in a newly hewn tomb in which no one had ever been laid. It is this Jesus who desires a personal encounter with each of us every day of our lives.
During Advent, we awaited His coming at Christmas when He, the Second Person of the Blessed Trinity, encountered us in the guise of a newborn child wrapped in swaddling clothes and lying in a manger. During Lent, He encountered us in a special way in our prayer, fasting and almsgiving. Now, on this Day of Days which is Easter, the Lord Jesus encounters us in Word and Sacrament. In the beginning, God spoke His all-powerful Word and thus created the entire universe, speaking into being the first man and woman. In each Mass, God speaks that same Word, and so the Incarnate Word, Crucified and Risen from the Dead, becomes truly present on our altars. Whenever we receive Holy Communion, we must remember that it is the Risen Christ whom we receive – not the Dead or Buried Christ.
While the empty tomb is the most significant sign of the Resurrection as an historical event, it is the Eucharistic Sacrifice and Banquet that is the greatest proof of the Resurrection in the here and now. In order to receive Our Lord worthily in Holy Communion; to fulfill our Easter Duty; and to deepen our personal relationship with the Living Lord Jesus Christ, we renounce Satan, his empty works and promises. We renounce sin so as to live in the freedom of the children of God. In a word, we renew our Baptismal Promises and profess the Apostles’ Creed, not only with our lips but with our lives.
How can we do this concretely in the Easter Season? In what practical ways can we Christians offer our thankful praises to the Paschal Victim for, as St. Augustine reminds us, “We are an Easter People and Alleluia is our song”?
(1) Pray the Divine Mercy Chaplet
(2) Pray the glorious mysteries of the Rosary
(3) Go to Confession at least once a month.
HAPPY EASTER
Fr. A. Francis HGN