Vatican City, Apr 15, 2017 / 01:46 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- During Easter Vigil at the Vatican Pope Francis noted that many people today mirror the sadness and grief of the women who went to Jesus’ tomb thinking he was still dead.
However, the Resurrection, he said, offers new hope for those who have perhaps lost it.
“That is what this night calls us to proclaim: the heartbeat of the Risen Lord. Christ is alive!” the Pope said April 15.
It is the excitement of this message, he said, that made them hurry back to tell the others that Jesus had risen: “That is what made them return in haste to tell the news. That is what made them lay aside their mournful gait and sad looks. They returned to the city to meet up with the others.”
Like the women, each us has also visited the tomb during the vigil, he said, and urged Christians to “go back” with the women into their cities with news of Jesus’ rising.
“Let us all retrace our steps and change the look on our faces,” he said. “Let us go back with them to tell the news in all those places where the grave seems to have the final word, where death seems the only way out.”
The Pope told them go back and proclaim the truth that “the Lord is alive! He is living and he wants to rise again in all those faces that have buried hope, buried dreams, buried dignity.”
“If we cannot let the Spirit lead us on this road, then we are not Christians,” he said.
Pope Francis spoke during his homily for the Easter Vigil, which he celebrated, as usual, in St. Peter’s Basilica as the culmination of his Holy Week events. Apart from the vigil, Pope Francis will also celebrate Mass in St. Peter’s Square Easter morning and give his traditional “Urbi et Orbi” blessing.
After delivering his homily, Pope Francis administered the Sacraments of Initiation – Baptism, Confirmation and the Eucharist – to 11 people, one of whom, Ali Acacius Damavandy, is from the United States.
In his homily, Pope Francis said that as Mary Magdalene and the other Mary went to the tomb in the day’s Gospel reading from Matthew, it’s easy to imagine their uncertain steps and their “pale and tearful” faces.
These women didn’t run away, but remained steadfast, and were people that had took life as it came and “knew the bitter taste of injustice.” However, they were still unable to accept Jesus’ death, he said.
By imagining the scene as it plays out, we can picture in the faces of these two women the faces of many others who “bear the grievous burden of injustice and brutality,” he said.
“In their faces we can see reflected all those who, walking the streets of our cities, feel the pain of dire poverty, the sorrow born of exploitation and human trafficking,” Francis said, explaining that we can also see the reflection of those treated with “contempt” because they are immigrants.
“We see faces whose eyes bespeak loneliness and abandonment, because their hands are creased with wrinkles,” he continued.
The faces of these women also mirror “the faces of women, mothers, who weep as they see the lives of their children crushed by massive corruption that strips them of their rights and shatters their dreams. By daily acts of selfishness that crucify and then bury people’s hopes. By paralyzing and barren bureaucracies that stand in the way of change.”
Francis pointed to the pain of all those “who, walking the streets of our cities, behold human dignity crucified,” saying this is also reflected in the grief experienced by the two women.
The women can also represent the faces of each of us personally, he said, explaining that like them, many of us can feel driven to continue walking forward and not to resign ourselves to the fact that “things have to end this way.”
While we carry God’s promise of faithfulness inside of us, our faces, the Pope said, often we bear the mark of various wounds, including infidelity on our part or the part of another, or of battles we have lost.
“In our hearts, we know that things can be different but, almost without noticing it, we can grow accustomed to living with the tomb, living with frustration,” he said, noting that even worse, we can also convince ourselves that “this is the law of life.”
By doing so, we “blunt our consciences with forms of escape that only serve to dampen the hope that God has entrusted to us,” and walk, like the women did, the line between the desire for God and “bleak resignation.”
However, with the Resurrection the women suddenly and unexpectedly feel “a powerful tremor,” and hear a voice telling them not to be afraid, because Jesus has risen from the dead.
The message: “Do not be afraid, brothers and sisters; he is risen as he said!” is one that has been passed on from generation to generation, Pope Francis said, explaining that “life, which death destroyed on the cross, now reawakens and pulsates anew.”
“The heartbeat of the Risen Lord is granted us as a gift, a present, a new horizon,” he said, explaining that this heart is given to us and in turn, we are also asked to give it to others as “the leaven of a new humanity.”
In his Resurrection, Christ not only rolled back the stone to the tomb, Francis said, but he also wants “to break down all the walls that keep us locked in our sterile pessimism, in our carefully constructed ivory towers that isolate us from life, in our compulsive need for security and in boundless ambition that can make us compromise the dignity of others.”
Precisely when the religious leaders of the day, in collusion with the Romans, thought they they had the last word, God enters and “upsets all the rules and offers new possibilities,” the Pope said. “God once more comes to meet us, to create and consolidate a new age, the age of mercy.”
This, he said, is the promise that has been present from the beginning and which is “God’s surprise” for his people.
Pope Francis closed by saying that hidden in every life there is a seed of the Resurrection, “an offer of life ready to be awakened.”
He prayed that all would allow themselves to be surprised by this “this new dawn and by the newness that Christ alone can give,” and asked that we not only allow Christ’s loving tenderness to guide our steps, but that we also “allow the beating of his heart to quicken our faintness of heart.”
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Like Keanu Reeves in the Matrix [inspiration by Francis X Maier article] Card Arborelius has taken the red pill rather than remain in the anesthetized state of his down South compatriots.
Nordic bishops are outspoken in criticizing the trend toward heterodoxy within our Church. Perhaps it’s similar to a newer Church similar to Nigeria’s heroic witness amid murderous Islamists. Although the Lutherans aren’t murderous, at least not in comparison. Liberally aggressive perhaps. Intellectually adrift. Ingmar Bergman’s films reflect the search for meaning. At any rate it’s complex. At least their bishops have something to offer. Would that their spirit enlivens
their compatriots.
The Nordic bishops…sort of peripheral?
Might we hope that all of the new bishops and cardinals of the “periphery” in Africa and Asia will see with non-secularist eyes, unlike much of the West, and exert their evangelical and institutional influence at the Synods and at the next conclave?
As if, rather than “primarily as [yes] facilitators,” they are “sent” (apostello), firstly and truly primarily as successors of the apostles. Sent by the historical and incarnate Jesus Christ–the incongruous, “concrete,” and leavening fact (!) at the center of all ambulatory human history, and more than one pluralist idea among many.
Nordic bishops are reactive to a Lutheran culture, whereas bishops in the West, specifically Europe are products of a dying religious culture influenced by secularist intellectual trends. Our US bishops are in a gradual trend toward the European model nevertheless more reactionary to secularism. Bishops Strickland, Cordileone examples of that reaction.
All bishops are first of all defenders of the faith as successors of the Apostles. This is the battle line perpetrated by this pontificate and challenged by a very few Strickland the standout. Fr Gerald Murray articulated this dynamic on World Over and the apparent rationale for which he’s being prosecuted if not persecuted. This is spiritual life and death matter to be taken with due appreciation. Analogously, we’re, that is, those of us prepared to defend the faith at whatever cost are the thin black line of clergy who stand to fight in the shadow of the Cross [wording inspired by Therese of Lisieux]. Strickland deserves our full support. In terms of honor he requires our support.
You’re correct, there is no periphery at play here, there are men prepared to give the glory of their loyalty to Christ.
As a woman myself, I have no interest in attending a “Mass” conducted by a woman. I have seen such conducted at protestant churches and I find them lacking. Nor could I envision going to confession to one. Why don’t these women stick to the many ministries already open to women? I am tired of hearing about this topic, as are many Catholics. Its also a certainty I would not support it financially.
Well, I left the Catholic Church for many years when I felt a call as a woman toward becoming a deacon, and realized I was denied this on the basis of my genetics. Somehow I missed that entire part of my upbringing as a Catholic, and even into my adulthood when I was struck by, basically, a “born again” episode at age 27 and plunged into study and prayer. Well, my journey from there took me to 2 other female-led churches within the Episcopal Church, in the pain of rejection by my own Church. At first, it was balm, but after 10 years, I realized that the Episcopal Church in general, and our Churches in particular, had been led astray by the emotion of our society instead of sticking with the reality of our Christian faith. I returned to Catholic with much unresolved feelings of betrayal still, but the Body of Christ is what keeps my in the Church and keeps me going. I believe that women have a place as Deacons, and would deeply like to see that emerge for all the roles Deacons can play, but also, because of the way that the other women-led churches have been led astray by emotion and strayed so far as to actively support even abortion, I have to agree, women as priests, therefore with growing power to change our Church, should not happen.
Pauline, for you, the sex of a person seems to figure most prominently in how you practice your religion. So I have a few questions for you.
#1. Does it matter to you at all that the Savior – God incarnate – came among us as a man and not as a woman?
#2. Does it matter to you at all that Jesus Christ did not have a human Father, but a Divine Father and was born of a human mother?
#3. Does it matter to you that the only human person graced by God to be born free of original sin was a woman?
How do these three sexual anomalies/disparities/distinctions figure into your faith as a Catholic? I’d be curious to know what you make of these.
Ordaining women is part of a sure path to shrinking congregations & irrelevance. I returned recently from a trip to the UK & this was the case in each CE church we visited. One cathedral c. 670 AD had exactly three elderly couples attending evening prayer led by a woman clergy member. The church events calendar advertised upcoming Elvis & Abba themed music performances inside the cathedral. Using what should be sacred space for Elvis impersonations might garner a higher attendance than evening prayer but does little for a dwindling church membership.
LJ, I agree completely with all of your points.
To your question of why women don’t stick to ministries open to them, the answer is that the question is not, nor has it ever been, about ministry. It’s all about power, whether perceived or actual. One simply has to listen to any of the arguments in favor of priestesses. All of them involve repetitive use of terms such as “patriarchy”, “hierarchy”, “sexism”, “exclusion” and the like. These are expressions of grievance that refer to power or its lack. These are not the words of those who seek first the salvation of souls or expanded understanding of the splendor of truth (both capitalized and lower case).
What’s critically important to understand is that when the the Church says “no”, She always points at the same time to an exalted “yes”. The key is to find, and to live, the yes. Therein lies the path to eternal life.
I too believe I would be uncomfortable with woman in the role of priests. Mostly, I think because Jesus and the apostles were male. Some would say that was the times, the culture. But yet, the Bible clearly states the role of the husband and a wife in marriage. Priscilla along with her husband Aquila are mentioned as helpers to Paul. She seemed to be an important source of spreading the gospel but she was not a priest. I do get tired of women who insist they are being demeaned, disrespected, etc. if not allowed to be a priest. There are so many ways to participate in the faith.
Well, thanks I guess.
Maybe Cardinal Müller will have one friend. If I recall, that was crucial in middle school
Welcome common sense from Sweden and not for the first time. Who would’ve thought?
Sweden apparently exercised some commonsense during Covid also. At least it seems that way so far.
I never in my right mind thought I’d live to see the day when a bishop from Scandinavia came out as a Defender of the Faith.
(Just in case anyone should be inclined to accuse me of not being aligned with the Catholic Church : “Francis truly IS the Pope.” There, I’ve repeated the required mantra.)
It certainly shouldn’t be a focal point of the discussion. It shouldn’t be any part of the discussion, truth be told.
As a Discalced Carmelite, I am grateful to my Swedish Brother for his clear and charitable presentation of the faith!
I recently posted my own statement on the ordination of women in reply to an article in The Tablet: https://flemingtoncarmel.org/posts/the-place-of-women-in-the-church