Pope Francis at the Easter Vigil Mass in St. Peter’s Basilica on April 16, 2022. / Vatican Media
Vatican City, Apr 16, 2022 / 15:00 pm (CNA).
Here is the full text of Pope Francis’ homily for Easter Vigil 2022, which was celebrated in St. Peter’s Basilica on April 16, 2022.
Many writers have evoked the beauty of starlit nights. The nights of war, however, are riven by streams of light that portend death. On this night, brothers and sisters, let us allow the women of the Gospel to lead us by the hand, so that, with them, we may glimpse the first rays of the dawn of God’s life rising in the darkness of our world. As the shadows of night were dispelled before the quiet coming of the light, the women set out for the tomb, to anoint the body of Jesus. There they had a disconcerting experience. First, they discovered that the tomb was empty; then they saw two figures in dazzling garments who told them that Jesus was risen. Immediately they ran back to proclaim the news to the other disciples (cf. Lk 24:1-10). They saw, they heard, they proclaimed. With these three verbs, may we too enter into the passover of the Lord from death to life.
The women saw. The first proclamation of the resurrection was not a statement to be unpacked, but a sign to be contemplated. In a burial ground, near a grave, in a place where everything should be orderly and peaceful, the women “found the stone rolled away from the tomb; but when they went in, they did not find the body” (vv. 2-3). Easter begins by upsetting our expectations. It comes with the gift of a hope that surprises and amazes us. Yet it is not easy to welcome that gift. At times – we must admit – this hope does not find a place in our hearts. Like the women in the Gospel, we are overtaken by questions and doubts, and our first reaction before the unexpected sign is one of fear: “They were terrified and bowed their faces to the ground” (v. 5).
All too often we look at life and reality with downcast eyes; we fix our gaze only on this passing day, disenchanted by the future, concerned only with ourselves and our needs, settled into the prison of our apathy, even as we keep complaining that things will never change. In this way, we halt before the tomb of resignation and fatalism, and we bury the joy of living. Yet tonight the Lord wants to give us different eyes, alive with hope that fear, pain and death will not have the last word over us. Thanks to Jesus’ paschal mystery, we can make the leap from nothingness to life. “Death will no longer be able to rob our life” (K. RAHNER), for that life is now completely and eternally embraced by the boundless love of God. True, death can fill us with dread; it can paralyze us. But the Lord is risen! Let us lift up our gaze, remove the veil of sadness and sorrow from our eyes, and open our hearts to the hope that God brings!
In the second place, the women heard. After they had seen the empty tomb, the two men in dazzling garments said to them, “Why do you look for the living among the dead? He is not here, but has risen” (vv. 5-6). We do well to listen to those words and to repeat them: He is not here! Whenever we think we have understood everything there is to know about God, and can pigeonhole him in our own ideas and categories, let us repeat to ourselves: He is not here! Whenever we seek him only in times of emotion, so often passing, and moments of need, only to set him aside and forget about him in the rest of our daily life and decisions, let us repeat: He is not here! And whenever we think we can imprison him in our words, in our formulas, and in our customary ways of thinking and acting, and neglect to seek him in the darkest corners of life, where there are people who weep, who struggle, suffer and hope, let us repeat: He is not here!
May we too hear the question asked of the women: “Why do you look for the living among the dead?” We cannot celebrate Easter if we continue to be dead; if we remain prisoners of the past; if in our lives we lack the courage to let ourselves be forgiven by God who forgives everything, the courage to change, to break with the works of evil, to decide for Jesus and his love. If we continue to reduce faith to a talisman, making God a lovely memory from times past, instead of encountering him today as the living God who desires to change us and to change our world. A Christianity that seeks the Lord among the ruins of the past and encloses him in the tomb of habit is a Christianity without Easter. Yet the Lord is risen! Let us not tarry among the tombs, but run to find him, the Living One! Nor may we be afraid to seek him also in the faces of our brothers and sisters, in the stories of those who hope and dream, in the pain of those who we suffer: God is there!
Finally, the women proclaimed. What did they proclaim? The joy of the resurrection. Easter did not occur simply to console those who mourned the death of Jesus, but to open hearts to the extraordinary message of God’s triumph over evil and death. The light of the resurrection was not meant to let the women bask in a transport of joy, but to generate missionary disciples who “return from the tomb” (v. 9) in order to bring to all the Gospel of the risen Christ. That is why, after seeing and hearing, the women ran to proclaim to the disciples the joy of the resurrection. They knew that the others might think they were mad; indeed, the Gospel says that the women’s words “seemed to them an idle tale” (v. 11). Yet those women were not concerned for their reputation, for preserving their image; they did not contain their emotions or measure their words. They had only the fire in their hearts with which to bear the news, the proclamation: “The Lord is risen!”
And how beautiful is a Church that can run this way through the streets of our world! Without fear, without schemes and stratagems, but solely with the desire to lead everyone to the joy of the Gospel. That is what we are called to do: to experience the risen Christ and to share the experience with others; to roll away the stone from the tomb where we may have enclosed the Lord, in order to spread his joy in the world. Let us make Jesus, the Living One, rise again from all those tombs in which we have sealed him. Let us set him free from the narrow cells in which we have so often imprisoned him. Let us awaken from our peaceful slumber and let him disturb and inconvenience us. Let us bring him into our everyday lives: through gestures of peace in these days marked by the horrors of war, through acts of reconciliation amid broken relationships, acts of compassion towards those in need, acts of justice amid situations of inequality and of truth in the midst of lies. And above all, through works of love and fraternity.
Brothers and sisters our hope has a name: the name of Jesus. He entered the tomb of our sin; he descended to those depths where we feel most lost; he wove his way through the tangles of our fears, bore the weight of our burdens and from the dark abyss of death restored us to life and turned our mourning into joy. Let us celebrate Easter with Christ! He is alive! Today, too, he walks in our midst, changes us and sets us free. Thanks to him, evil has been robbed of its power; failure can no longer hold us back from starting anew; and death has become a passage to the stirrings of new life. For with Jesus, the Risen Lord, no night will last forever; and even in the darkest night, in that darkness, the morning star continues to shine.
In this darkness that you are living, Mr. Mayor, Parliamentarians, the thick darkness of war, of cruelty, we are all praying, praying with you and for you this night. We are praying for all the suffering. We can only give you our company, our prayer and say to you: “Courage! We are accompanying you!” And also to say to you the greatest thing we are celebrating today: Christòs voskrés! Christ is risen!
[…]
I can hardly wait! 🙂
Sounds like the pope has been reading the Opus Dei 101 documents. He’s run out of ramblings and he’s channeling modern saints now.
Who wrote it?
What has Tucho been up to?
Would rather wait for another pontiff to write an apostolic exhortation on holiness. In fact, the People of God could use one on holiness and wisdom. Pope Francis lack sufficient credibility since he is too judgmental toward traditional Catholics, indicating some lack of humility, and unwisely gives aid and comfort to enemies of the Church all too frequently. Developing a reputation for sowing confusion and not cleaning up after your own messes will make it hard for many of the faithful to not tune him out or otherwise willingly cite his words even if the content of the proposed apostolic exhortation proves laudable.
Is this document the result of a groundswell of demand by the faithful… because the words of Christ just don’t cut it?
One weakness of the post Vatican II media watching the Church now… period… is this idea that Popes should constantly write, travel or talk…or all three with Francis…because the media wants travel or books or great sayings.
And the recent Popes like the travel/author part….because it’s easier than cleaning house…admin work…you know…ruling. There is a thing called global administrative work…checking what can be done about pro abortion speakers at Catholic colleges…why are there night coed visitation rights at Catholic colleges while some Catholic colleges have sizable hookup rate percentages per the Newman Society website….are there lgbt clubs on campuses that affirm gay sex while the Holy Spirit condemns such in Romans 1:26-27. Popes should be cleaning house worldwide…not just Francis. St. John Paul II was writing TOB for months while sexual abuse was simultaneously taking place against children in some cases. Irony at its maximum. Benedict wrote too much on the saints. We have Catholic authors trying to make a living for their families to do that. When will we again have Popes who don’t turn the office into a writer in residence stint. There should be nothing untoward at any Catholic colleges if Popes we’re doing their essential job of ruling the worldwide Church a sufficient percent of each day. Frankly Benedict quit when the admin jobs had grown up to his ears while he was writing.
Betting it will be a mixed bag, fine on fundamentals, questionable with respect to contemporary application.
Given everything we have seen, read, and observed over the past five years, a reasonable forecast is that it will equate holiness with secular left-wing political shibboleths, including open borders, gun control, climate-change activism, the abolition of the death penalty and lifetime imprisonment, the socialism of central planners, the “positive aspects” of homosexuality and pan-sexual gender ideology, and the smashing of rigid, traditional “idols of truth”. Let us not forget that this pope is explicitly on record as declaring that Communists. In other words, we should prepare ourselves for yet another anti-magisterial “apostolic exhortation”.
I think you’re right
Let us not forget that this pope is explicitly on record as declaring that Communists are closet Christians.
Gaudete et Exultate in which he will likely decree that the new theological virtues are tolerance, diversity and inclusion. That the new cardinal virtues are accompaniment, flexibility, indifference and not judging.
Be glad and exult because Francis says there is no hell, or there is, but no one goes there, or they do, but not forever… Gay commitment rites and transgender rebaptisms – just as long as you don’t call it marriage…
So, Go therefore into all the world and build bridges, not walls.
Perhaps he would care to “exhort” confrere James Martin “SJ” to cease exhorting sodomy?
Credence spent poorly is not easily regained.
New times call for fresh ways of being holy.
I suppose that is why Pope Bergoglio chose the name of a 13th century saint named Francis of Assisi whose life of absolute poverty is so widely followed in the “new times” of today.
The title of this Apostolic Exhortation is beyond ironic in the mouth of a pipe who praises the destruction of the Church’s “idols of truth” and claims that the divine commandments of Jesus on the indissolubility of marriage and exceptionless negative moral norms are merely “ideals” that are impossible as a practical matter:
“11 beati estis cum maledixerint vobis et persecuti vos fuerint et dixerint omne malum adversum vos mentientes propter me 12 gaudete et exultate quoniam merces vestra copiosa est in caelis sic enim persecuti sunt prophetas qui fuerunt ante vos. (Mt. 5:11-12)
What’s the under/over on whether Francis’ main themes of holiness will be dialogue, accompanying, openness, love for migrants, climate change, etc., blah, blah, blah. The Church is being destroyed from within and Francis is leading the charge.