At the Easter Vigil in the Holy Night of Easter / Pascua de la Resurrección del Señor - Vigilia pascual en la noche santa (Homily / Homilía)

April 15, 2017 8:00 pm  · Father Sergio Muñoz Fita

Easter

English Homily

It is beautiful to celebrate together this holy night, the holiest of all vigils, in which Christ rises and makes us eternal.

Sometimes, we wrap up facts in so many words and speeches, that we lose sight of their reality. Many facts can be related regarding the Resurrection of Jesus. There are entire libraries dedicated to this subject and complete courses of theology that deal extensively with this mystery of faith. And all these concepts and elucidations cannot distract us from the tangible “fact” mysterious, but tangible that is the starting point of everything: the darkness of an empty tomb, the baffling reality of a dead man who has risen from the grave.

Christ has resurrected! It makes you want to weep with joy … The liturgy attempts to express the inexpressible. What a blissful night when heaven is united with the earth, the human and the divine! The light of the paschal candle overcomes our darkness: death, suffering, failure, weakness, sin.

I do not want to stray too far from the “fact” we celebrate. The Mass makes present the Resurrection of Christ. Christ has resurrected! Christ has resurrected! And there is nothing more to say. That’s the only word we want to resonate on this holy night. It is not a belief, it is not a religion, it is not an intricate thought. Our faith is something much more concrete: it is a body that rises, eyes that open again, it is a heart that beats again. As St. Paul the Apostle says, "Christ, once raised from the dead, dies no more. Death no longer has power over Him. "

Today we especially rejoice in the victory of Christ. We are also especially happy for those of you who will today receive in Baptism the grace of the Holy Spirit. The wonders of which the Word of God spoke to us are unique in you. Today God, as the first reading told us, creates you again. Today God makes an alliance with you that can’t be broken by anything. Today, like the people of Israel, you go from bondage to freedom crossing the waters of the Red Sea. Today the Spirit of God gives you life and brings you out of your graves. Today you are resurrected with Christ! Today you enter in glory with Him because his life will water your soul as if gentle rain transformed your desert into a green and flourishing garden.

The Liturgy of the Church does not distract us with history, but rather makes it real and present again. The events we have just heard are not part of a distant past, we live them tonight in the “today” of the Liturgy. Today God is creating the world before our eyes. Today we step into the open sea. We are truly in the tomb, united to Christ, at the very moment of his Resurrection. That is source of the greatest joy.

The road that opens before us, we do not know where its paths will lead us.  The light helps us to walk at night, offers us direction, orientation, but it does not spare us the effort of the journey. It is sometimes said that faith is too general, that it offers the same answers to everyone, that it does not take into account the concrete reality of each person. The truth is that our Faith cannot be more concrete. It is a Person and, from there, the questions can be many, but the answer is only one, Jesus Christ. Of that, we are all witnesses.

Let us ask God to grant us the grace to be afraid no more, as the angel told us in the Gospel. May the Resurrection of the Lord fill us with joy, hope and eagerness to announce the Good News to the whole world and that our brothers, on the verge of joining Christ through the sacraments of Christian initiation, culminate their pilgrimage on earth, arriving at the eternal joys of Paradise. Amen.