Sermon by Father Alex McAllister SDS                   Index

Easter Vigil—2003 Homily

Light, Word, Water, Eucharist; these are the four elements of the Easter Vigil Service.

Of course, what we celebrate is only one thing: the resurrection of Christ. But these four elements of our Vigil Service help to highlight the resurrection in its various aspects, and enable our liturgy tonight to be worthy of the holiest night of the year.

As our entrance rite we light the new fire and solemnly enter the darkened church. We stand in the candle light and solemnly proclaim the resurrection of the Lord in the ancient and magnificent words of the Exsultet.

The new fire and the candles are our recognition that Christ has definitively won the victory over the powers of darkness and evil. The Easter Candle serves on this night and for the rest of the year as a symbol of Christ the true Light of the World.

In the extended Liturgy of the World we hear a synopsis of the whole story of salvation. The plan of God is unfolded from the creation of the world down to the resurrection of Christ. We listen attentively to the Word of God; we remember the part played by our ancestors in faith and how God chose to reveal himself to him, eventually revealing himself definitively in the person of his Son Jesus.

With the blessing of water we celebrate the Liturgy of Baptism reminding ourselves of our own Baptism and take the opportunity to renew the promises that were made on that most important day of our lives. We recognise that in Baptism we are born again in Christ, that we are united with him and freed from sin and that it is indeed the beginning of our own resurrection.

After all that goes before it some might think that the Eucharist is a sort of bolt-on afterthought. Far from it. The Eucharist is what it is all about.

The Eucharist, the greatest sacrament of all, is the summation of the whole Paschal Mystery. The Last Supper of Christ our Lord is made once again present on this altar, we gather around and receive his body and blood, the acceptable sacrifice which brings salvation to the whole human race.

The object of the homily is to draw out some insights into the scripture texts. Of course, this evening you don’t want me to prolong the serviced by commenting on each of the readings. We ought to confine ourselves to the Gospel since it contain the story of the resurrection itself.

The most striking thing about this text is the fear of the women who, as its says, came out and ran away from the tomb because they were frightened out of their wits.

We have to be clear that they were not afraid in the sense that they would be if they met a potential rapist or murderer. They had had a profound religious experience—they were filled with what is termed in the Bible the fear of the Lord. This isn’t something that we come across every day, even though it is one of the Gifts of the spirit mentioned in the Sacrament of Confirmation.

In seeing the empty tomb and meeting the angels and hearing their message they experienced the revelation of God in all his awesome power. It was a moment of divine revelation and as such was deeply disturbing. Something they could not put into words.

And they were surely trembling with fear and awe at what they had experienced. On this the greatest night of the year we too experience through the power of the liturgy a certain awe at the great mystery that God has brought about. That Christ Jesus rose from the dead to free us from our sins and to open the way to everlasting life.

The deeper we appreciate this extraordinary mystery, the nearer we come to appreciating what those women experienced on that first Easter morning. We will tremble in awe and fear and wonder. We will be quite unable to communicate what we have experienced for it will be a glimpse of the inexpressible power and mystery of God himself.