The Mass of Easter Night

 1. Why look among the dead for someone who is alive? He is not here; he has risen.

I am here this evening, my dear brothers and sisters, as your bishop to announce to you once more the joyful news that Jesus is risen from the dead. Like the Apostles of the early Church, I am here to assure you that your faith is built on the sure foundation of the resurrection of Jesus. We can renew our baptismal promises and profess our baptismal faith with confidence and joy. The Candidate who will be received into full communion with the Catholic Church, who will be confirmed and who will receive the risen Lord in the Eucharist for the first time, he too can be confident that his faith in Christ has a sure and certain foundation in the resurrection of the Lord.

2. Jesus came to announce the nearness of God’s kingdom. He invited people to believe in him and to accept his message. His teaching was accompanied by miracles of God’s power and mercy. He had gathered disciples around him as the core of the new people of God. But his death on the cross threatened to sweep away all that had been built up. But on the third day, the women went to the tomb. Amazingly they found the tomb empty. His body was not there. Peter and the Apostles came to see. They remembered that Jesus said he would suffer and die and rise again. They did not understand what he meant. Now they did. They saw and they believed. God had vindicated his Holy One. God had raised up Jesus his Son from the dead. In a time when religious faith is considered by many to be only a matter of private opinion and to have no objective validity, it is important to know that the Church’s faith is based on the resurrection as a reality. When the Pope, the Successor of Peter, gives the traditional Easter message in many languages from the balcony of St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome, he usually concludes with the announcement in Latin: Christus vere surrexit. Alleluia. Christ is  truly  risen, Alleluia. And this is the message of hope that sustains us and which the Church announces to the world at Easter.

3. Baptism is at the core of the Mass of the Easter Vigil. St. Paul is full of this mystery. “When we were baptised in Christ Jesus, we were baptised in his death.” Paul goes on to explain: “you too must consider yourselves dead to sin but alive for God in Jesus Christ.” The Easter mystery of Christ’s death and resurrection gives rise to a new way of life for those who believe in Jesus. We cast off sin and selfishness and accept the new shining garments of grace, faith and virtue. My dear brothers and sister, I am here to encourage you in your Christian life of faith in Christ, of love and service, and of faithfulness to our vocation. We are about to renew our baptismal promises and profess our faith. We will be sprinkled with Easter water as a sign of our baptism. Let this be an authentic sign of our commitment to Christian living. 

4. The Eucharist is the culmination of the Easter Vigil.  We have professed our faith in the risen Lord. But how do we recognise the risen Lord? We recognise him, as did the disciples on the road to Emmaus, in the Eucharist. He is with us above all at the breaking of bread. May our Holy Communion this Easter night deepen our union with Jesus Christ who died on the cross and on the third day rose again from the dead. To him be honour and glory for ever. Amen.

St. Joseph’s Clarkston

7^th April 2007.