EASTER VIGIL 2011: 23rd April, 2011

EASTER VIGIL 2011: 23rd April, 2011


My dear Brothers and Sisters,

There are quite a few Vigils in the Church’s Calendar: the Vigil of Christmas and of Pentecost, the Vigil of the Immaculate Conception and Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary, the Vigil of Sts. Peter and Paul and the Vigil of St. John the Baptist. But the most important Vigil is the Easter Vigil. It is rightly called the Mother of all Vigils because it celebrates the very foundation of our Christian faith, the Resurrection of Jesus. If Christ had not risen, we would be believing in a dead God. Worse still, we would be back in our sins. But Christ has risen and by rising has destroyed sin and death. Dying He has destroyed our death and rising He has restored our life! We have reason to rejoice! Mother Church cannot contain her joy as She heaps Alleluia upon Alleluia; the Gloria which was omitted throughout the forty days of Lent is resumed; the clapper of Good Friday is set aside and the bells are rung. Indeed, we are an Easter People and the Alleluia is our song!

The Easter Vigil is celebrated at night. The night is a time of silence and stillness; it gives us the time we need to ponder and pray. God seems to have a distinct preference for the night. There are three important nights in the history of salvation. The first night is that of the Passover when God struck the first born in Egypt, led his people out of bondage to Pharaoh, decimated Pharaoh’s armies and made the people of Israel pass over the waters of the Red Sea into freedom. This is what God has done to each of us. Through the waters of baptism, we were freed from slavery to sin and ushered into the freedom of grace. We celebrate tonight our own freedom for there is no greater slavery than the slavery to sin just as there is no greater freedom than the freedom that comes from God’s amazing grace.

The second night is the night of Christmas which commemorates the birth of Jesus. He was born not in the splendour of the day but in the silence of the night; not in the pomp of a palace but in the poverty of a stable. At Christmas we celebrate not only the birth of Jesus but our own birth too for in the wonder of the Word made flesh “God has become one with man and man has become one again with God”. The mystery we celebrate tonight recalls the fact that we have been born again. If Christmas marks the beginning of our salvation, Easter is its climax. At Christmas God became human; at Easter we have been “divinised” This is as the Exsultet chants the “night truly blessed when heaven is wedded to earth and man is reconciled with God!”

The third night is that of the Resurrection when Christ rose triumphantly from the dead. He will never die again. Death has no power over him anymore. As Christians, we too have died to sin. We went into the tomb with him; we joined him in death so that just as Jesus was raised from the dead we too might live a new life. At Easter, therefore, we celebrate our own resurrection as we share His glorious victory. We are summoned to strive and lead this new life, to overcome sin, to put to death all that is evil in us and be overpowered instead with God’s grace.

Easter is both a holiday and a holy day: a holiday when we take a break from our normal routine and a holy day when we take time off to ponder and pray over the mysteries of our Christian faith remembering always that we are an Easter People and the Alleluia is our song! Amen.



[St. Tudwal Church, Barmouth – Msgr. Alex Rebello (641 Words)]