Introduction: Holy
Saturday & Easter Vigil: May you continue to experience what a relationship
with GOD is all about as you celebrate the new life that comes from the Risen
Lord Jesus.
We may continue
to be awestruck by the way GOD works. Nothing happens without GOD’s allowing
it. There is no such thing as luck. We are not lucky to have life. It is
providential – GOD continuing to provide for us. GOD can even make the worst
possible situations turn into blessings. What could be worse than the death of
the Son of GOD on a cross? Yet, from the tomb in which the crucified Jesus was
laid, new life has come. Jesus is alive in His glorified body. He has conquered
not only sin and death, He has made it possible for us to share a renewed
relationship with the GOD Who has created us. And this new relationship is
eternal. Let us continue to rejoice and celebrate. Jesus is alive. We are
saved. Alleluia!
Today (Holy
Saturday) is a day of nothingness. During the daytime, liturgically speaking in
the mainline Church tradition, nothing happens. It is a day of sorrow, a day
for reflection. It is a day between the death of Jesus (Good Friday) and His
Resurrection (Easter). There are no readings for Saturday because in the
Catholic tradition, nothing happens on this day.
Things change
when the sun sets and, according to Jewish and Christian tradition, Sunday
begins. In the darkness that begins Sunday (Saturday night after sunset),
Christians assemble to keep a vigil for the Lord Jesus. We reflect on the story
of salvation, from the beginning of the world to the third day after Jesus’
death. We wait in hopeful anticipation that the Lord Jesus will keep His
promise and rise. We look forward to new life, not just for Jesus, but also for
all believers, especially those who would be welcomed into the Christian
community on this vigil above all vigils, this liturgical celebration that
surpasses all liturgical celebrations.
Within the
Catholic and other mainline Christian traditions, the Easter Vigil is different
from any other liturgical celebration. The service has four parts: 1) The
Liturgy of Fire; 2) The Liturgy of the Word; 3) The Liturgy of Water and
Baptism and Initiation; 4) The Liturgy of the Eucharist. (Some services will
reverse the order of the first two parts.)
In the darkness
at the beginning of this vigil service, a fire is enkindled. It is the Light of
the Risen Christ. From this new fire, the Paschal (also called “Easter” or
“Christ”) Candle is lit. The Light of Christ is carried in procession into the
darkened church.
As the Light of
Christ is welcomed into the darkened church, each participant has her/his
candle lit from the Paschal Candle. Soon, all are enlightened by the Light of the Risen Lord. Joyfully, the Exsultet is sung as all stand in the Light of Christ.
The Exsultet is a hymn to the Risen Lord. It speaks of the necessary sin of
Adam that led to the promise of a Redeemer. It proclaims the fulfillment of
Hebrew scriptures in the coming of Jesus, the Light, the Life of the World.
In the second
part of the celebration – the Liturgy of the Word – the assembled faith
community listens to their history being retold. Just as the Israelites retold,
remembered, and relived (zikaron) their story (Haggadah) each Passover, we tell
our story – GOD’s story. We make present the events related in the story. We
see GOD’s plan at work as the story is told. The story of salvation consists of
seven readings (each with a Responsorial) from Hebrew scripture.
Epistle Romans 6:3-11: Christ,
having been raised from the dead, will never die again
Commentary: Paul
has just explained to us how Christ is the Second Adam, by his obedience
undoing the disobedience of Adam. The reaction may be, ‘But what has that to do
with me? How does it benefit me?’ The answer here given is that we were
baptised into Christ’s death so that we are joined to him and will be
transformed by his resurrection. The Greek baptizo means ‘plunge into’: we are
plunged into Christ’s death. Our life is now Christ’s life, though not yet
transformed like his. Paul coins a whole series of new words beginning with
‘syn-’ (a formation similar to ‘synchronized’ or ‘synthetic’) to show how our
life is merged into Christ’s. The most expressive of all is that we are
synphytoi with Christ: this word is used in medical terminology to express how
two parts of a broken bone grow together again and merge into a bond stronger
than the original. By my baptism into Christ’s death, his death becomes mine.
Christ’s story becomes my story. Christ’s strength becomes my strength.
Christ’s body becomes my body. Christ’s risen life becomes my risen life.
Psalm
118:1-2,16-17,22-23: Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia!
Psalm 118
begins with a call to give thanks to the Lord for His enduring mercy,
emphasizing His goodness and covenant love that remains steadfast through all
circumstances. This psalm invites believers to trust in God's faithfulness,
rejoice in His victories, and recognize His ultimate plan of redemption.
Gospel Luke 24:1-12: Why look
among the dead for someone who is alive?
Commentary: The
Gospel is a challenge and at various times people feel the need to protect
themselves from it: Christians sometimes, pagans more often. One favourite
technique of self-defence is to tell oneself (perhaps not in so many words)
that the Gospels are a literary creation rather than an honest attempt at
narrating exactly what happened. That way biblical scholars can study without
listening, making careers out of deciding who influenced whom and who wrote
which bit. The rest of us can defend ourselves from life-changing truths by
reading the stories the way we would read any other work of literature.
The synoptic
Gospels’ narrative of the Resurrection shows how the Gospels themselves defend
themselves, making such evasion impossible.
First, there is
their inconsistency. Whenever Matthew, Mark and Luke are witnesses to an event,
they are slightly discordant more often than not. In this case – Who
exactly goes to the tomb? Who is it they meet there? One man in white, two men
in brilliant clothes, or an angel? The inconsistency is patent. On the other
hand, anyone who has been involved in police investigation will tell you that
when witnesses disagree, that shows they are all being truthful. It is when
witnesses all agree in every detail that you know that someone has been
coaching them. So here, as throughout the synoptic Gospels, we can be certain
that we are not looking at a constructed narrative but a genuine effort to give
a truthful account despite the fact that everyone has remembered things
slightly differently.
The second
place in the resurrection narrative where anyone setting out to construct a
good persuasive foundation for a new religion could have done it better is the
whole mention of the women. In the culture and even in the legal system of the
time, women were less reliable than men. Their testimony in a court of law was
arithmetically defined as carrying less weight than a man’s. You can see from
the disciples’ reaction to the women’s report that they are not entirely free
of this way of thinking. Throughout the Church’s history, indeed, one of the
taunts against Christianity has been that it is something only silly old women
believe in.
Anyone setting
out to invent a new religion would take care to (a) make its foundation
documents consistent with each other and (b) base its greatest claim of all on
the evidence of people whose authority everybody accepts, not women.
And yet the
Gospel does neither of these things. This is because the Gospel is not intended
as the building-block of a new religion. The Gospel simply wants to say what
happened: to tell the truth.
Reflection: What
did the disciples of Jesus discover on the third day of Jesus' death? On Sunday
morning the women who had stood with Jesus when he died upon the cross on Good
Friday went to the tomb to pay their last tribute to a dead body. The disciples
thought that everything had finished in tragedy. None of Jesus' followers were
expecting to see an empty tomb and hear the angel's message, "Why do you
seek the living among the dead? Remember how he told you, while he was still in
Galilee, that the Son of man must be delivered into the hands of sinful men,
and be crucified, and on the third day rise" (Luke 24:5-7). The angel
urged them to believe that Jesus had indeed risen just as he had promised. This
good news was not easy for them to grasp because their hearts were still
weighed down with grief and doubt. In wonder, they went to share the good news
with the other disciples.
Is it any small
wonder that it was the women, rather than the apostles, who first witnessed the
empty tomb and then the appearance of the resurrected Lord (Matthew 28:8-10;
Mark 16:9; John 20:15-18)? Isidore of Seville (560-636 AD), a great teacher and
bishop, commented on the significance of the women being the first to hear the
good news of the resurrection: "As a woman (Eve) was first to taste death,
so a woman (Mary Magdalene) was first to taste life. As a woman was prescient
in the fall, so a woman was prescient in beholding the dawning of redemption,
thus reversing the curse upon Eve." The first to testify to the risen Lord
was a woman from whom Jesus had cast out seven demons.
What is the
significance of the stone being rolled away? It would have taken several people
to move such a stone. And besides, the sealed tomb had been guarded by
soldiers! This is clearly the first sign of the resurrection. Bede (672-735
AD), a renowned scripture commentator from England, wrote: "[The angel]
rolled back the stone not to throw open a way for our Lord to come forth, but
to provide evidence to people that he had already come forth. As the virgin's
womb was closed, so the sepulcher was closed, yet he entered the world through
her closed womb, and so he left the world through the closed sepulcher"
(from Homilies on the Gospels 2,7,24). Peter Chrysologus (400-450 AD), another
early church father, remarked: "To behold the resurrection, the stone must
first be rolled away from our hearts." Do you know the joy of the
resurrection?
It is
significant that the disciples had to first deal with the empty tomb before
they could come to grips with the fact that scripture had foretold that Jesus
would die for our sins and then rise triumphant. They disbelieved until they
saw the empty tomb. Bede (672-735 AD) explains why the Risen Lord chose to
reveal himself gradually to the disciples:
"Our Lord
and redeemer revealed the glory of his resurrection to his disciples gradually
and over a period of time, undoubtedly because so great was the virtue of the
miracle that the weak hearts of mortals could not grasp [the significance of]
this all at once. Thus, he had regard for the frailty of those seeking him. To
those who came first to the tomb, both the women who were aflame with love for
him and the men, he showed the stone rolled back. Since his body had been
carried away, he showed them the linen cloths in which it had been wrapped
lying there alone. Then, to the women who were searching eagerly, who were
confused in their minds about what they had found out about him, he showed a
vision of angels who disclosed evidences of the fact that he had risen again.
Thus, with the report of his resurrection already accomplished, going ahead of
him, the Lord of hosts and the king of glory himself at length appeared and
made clear with what great might he had overcome the death he had temporarily
tasted." (From Homilies on the Gospels 2,9,25)
One thing is
certain: if Jesus had not risen from the dead and appeared to his disciples, we
would never have heard of him. Nothing else could have changed sad and
despairing men and women into people radiant with joy and courage. The reality
of the resurrection is the central fact of the Christian faith. Through the
gift of the Holy Spirit, the Lord gives us "eyes of faith" to know
him and the power of his resurrection. The greatest joy we can have is to
encounter the living Lord and to know him personally. Do you celebrate the
feast of Easter with joy and thanksgiving for the victory which Jesus has won
for you over sin and death?
Lord Jesus
Christ, you have triumphed over the grave, and you have won new life for us.
Give me the eyes of faith to see you in your glory. Help me to draw near to you
and to grow in the knowledge of your great love and power.
Daily Quote from the Early Church Fathers: Christ destroyed death to bring us life, from a
sermon by Leo the Great, 400-461 A.D.
"God's
compassion for us is all the more wonderful because Christ died, not for the
righteous or the holy but for the wicked and the sinful, and, though the divine
nature could not be touched by the sting of death, he took to himself, through
his birth as one of us, something he could offer on our behalf. The power of
his death once confronted our death. In the words of Hosea the prophet: Death,
I shall be your death; grave, I shall swallow you up. By dying he submitted to
the laws of the underworld; by rising again he destroyed them. He did away with
the everlasting character of death so as to make death a thing of time, not of
eternity. As all die in Adam, so all will be brought to life in Christ."
Risen Jesus, I do! “Are you not aware that we who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into His death?” —Romans 6:3
To know the
risen Christ in a life-changing, death-conquering way, we must be baptized in
His name (Acts 2:38). If we are already baptized, we must renew our Baptisms
and live them. In this way, we become aware that we “have been raised up in
company with Christ” (Col 3:1). In Baptism, we know the risen Christ.
Therefore, on
this first day of the Easter season, at every Mass in the world, the Church
calls us to renew our baptismal promises. When we answer “I do” to these
questions, we, by God’s grace, are making the greatest commitment we have ever
made and the greatest commitment possible for a human being to make. In
preparation for this great event, we have been doing penance, giving alms,
praying, and fasting for the forty days of Lent.
So today, let
us meet the risen Jesus as we make the supreme act of faith in renewing our
baptismal promises. Throughout the world, the Church has been doing this for
two-thousand years. Millions have met, known, and loved the risen Lord through
living their Baptisms. On this Easter Sunday, believe, say “I do,” and live the
new life in the risen Lord. Happy Resurrection Day!
Prayer: Father,
risen Son, and Holy Spirit, I do believe in You with all my heart. “He saw and
believed.” —Jn 20:8. “I am... the Morning Star shining bright” (Rv 22:16).
Praise the risen Jesus, now and forever. Alleluia!
Personal action for today:
As I reflect on the history of salvation as celebrated in the Easter
Vigil, what stands out the most for me? Do I experience the plan of GOD being
revealed through the readings and the liturgy, and in my life? How can I die
more to sin and live a life that proclaims the Good News of the Risen Lord
Jesus? How can I help others experience the salvation that comes through
Jesus’ death and resurrection?
*The Easter Vigil, also known as the Paschal Vigil, is a deeply significant liturgical celebration in Christianity observed on the night before Easter Sunday. It marks the transition from the solemnity of Holy Saturday to the joy of Easter, celebrating the Resurrection of Jesus Christ. Due to its profound theological and historical importance, this vigil is often referred to as the "Mother of All Vigils."
- Service of Light: The vigil begins in darkness, symbolizing the world before Christ. The Paschal Candle is lit, representing Jesus as the Light of the World, and this light is shared among the congregation.
- Liturgy
of the Word: A series of Scripture readings recounts the story of
salvation history, from creation to Christ's resurrection, highlighting God's
redemptive plan.
-
Baptismal Liturgy: New members are often baptized, and the congregation
renews their baptismal promises, affirming their faith and commitment to
Christ.
- Liturgy
of the Eucharist: The celebration culminates in the Eucharist, where
the faithful partake in Holy Communion, rejoicing in the risen Christ.
Significance:
The Easter Vigil is not just a remembrance but a participation in the
mystery of Christ's resurrection. It symbolizes the victory of light over
darkness, life over death, and hope over despair. It also serves as the first
official celebration of Easter, closing the Lenten season and ushering in the
joy of the Resurrection. This vigil is a time of profound reflection, renewal,
and celebration for believers worldwide.
