Vatican City, Apr 11, 2020 / 03:40 pm (CNA).- Here is the full text of the Easter Vigil homily of Pope Francis, delivered April 11 at St. Peter’s Basilica.
“After the Sabbath” (Mt 28:1), the women went to the tomb. This is how the Gospel of this holy Vigil began: with the Sabbath. It is the day of the Easter Triduum that we tend to neglect as we eagerly await the passage from Friday’s cross to Easter Sunday’s Alleluia. This year however, we are experiencing, more than ever, the great silence of Holy Saturday. We can imagine ourselves in the position of the women on that day. They, like us, had before their eyes the drama of suffering, of an unexpected tragedy that happened all too suddenly. They had seen death and it weighed on their hearts. Pain was mixed with fear: would they suffer the same fate as the Master? Then too there was fear about the future and all that would need to be rebuilt. A painful memory, a hope cut short. For them, as for us, it was the darkest hour.
Yet in this situation the women did not allow themselves to be paralyzed. They did not give in to the gloom of sorrow and regret, they did not morosely close in on themselves, or flee from reality. On the Sabbath they were doing something simple yet extraordinary: preparing at home the spices to anoint the body of Jesus. They did not stop loving; in the darkness of their hearts, they lit a flame of mercy. Our Lady spent that Saturday, the day that would be dedicated to her, in prayer and hope. She responded to sorrow with trust in the Lord. Unbeknownst to these women, they were making preparations, in the darkness of that Sabbath, for “the dawn of the first day of the week”, the day that would change history. Jesus, like a seed buried in the ground, was about to make new life blossom in the world; and these women, by prayer and love, were helping to make that hope flower. How many people, in these sad days, have done and are still doing what those women did, sowing seeds of hope! With small gestures of care, affection and prayer.
At dawn the women went to the tomb. There the angel says to them: “Do not be afraid. He is not here; for he has risen” (vv. 5-6). They hear the words of life even as they stand before a tomb… And then they meet Jesus, the giver of all hope, who confirms the message and says: “Do not be afraid” (v. 10). Do not be afraid, do not yield to fear: This is the message of hope. It is addressed to us, today. Today. These are the words that God repeats to us this very night.
Tonight we acquire a fundamental right that can never be taken away from us: the right to hope. It is a new and living hope that comes from God. It is not mere optimism; it is not a pat on the back or an empty word of encouragement, with a passing smile. No. It is a gift from heaven, which we could not have earned on our own. Over these weeks, we have kept repeating, “All will be well”, clinging to the beauty of our humanity and allowing words of encouragement to rise up from our hearts. But as the days go by and fears grow, even the boldest hope can dissipate. Jesus’ hope is different. He plants in our hearts the conviction that God is able to make everything work unto good, because even from the grave he brings life.
The grave is the place where no one who enters ever leaves. But Jesus emerged for us; he rose for us, to bring life where there was death, to begin a new story in the very place where a stone had been placed. He, who rolled away the stone that sealed the entrance of the tomb, can also remove the stones in our hearts. So, let us not give in to resignation; let us not place a stone before hope. We can and must hope, because God is faithful. He did not abandon us; he visited us and entered into our situations of pain, anguish and death. His light dispelled the darkness of the tomb: today he wants that light to penetrate even to the darkest corners of our lives. Dear sister, dear brother, even if in your heart you have buried hope, do not give up: God is greater. Darkness and death do not have the last word. Be strong, for with God nothing is lost!
Courage. This is a word often spoken by Jesus in the Gospels. Only once do others say it, to encourage a person in need: “Courage; rise, [Jesus] is calling you!” (Mk 10:49). It is he, the Risen One, who raises us up from our neediness. If, on your journey, you feel weak and frail, or fall, do not be afraid, God holds out a helping hand and says to you: “Courage!”. You might say, as did Don Abbondio (in Manzoni’s novel), “Courage is not something you can give yourself” (I Promessi Sposi, XXV). True, you cannot give it to yourself, but you can receive it as a gift. All you have to do is open your heart in prayer and roll away, however slightly, that stone placed at the entrance to your heart so that Jesus’ light can enter. You only need to ask him: “Jesus, come to me amid my fears and tell me too: Courage!” With you, Lord, we will be tested but not shaken. And, whatever sadness may dwell in us, we will be strengthened in hope, since with you the cross leads to the resurrection, because you are with us in the darkness of our nights; you are certainty amid our uncertainties, the word that speaks in our silence, and nothing can ever rob us of the love you have for us.
This is the Easter message, a message of hope. It contains a second part, the sending forth. “Go and tell my brethren to go to Galilee” (Mt 28:10), Jesus says. “He is going before you to Galilee” (v. 7), the angel says. The Lord goes before us. He always goes before us. It is encouraging to know that he walks ahead of us in life and in death; he goes before us to Galilee, that is, to the place which for him and his disciples evoked the idea of daily life, family and work. Jesus wants us to bring hope there, to our everyday life. For the disciples, Galilee was also the place of remembrance, for it was the place where they were first called. Returning to Galilee means remembering that we have been loved and called by God. Each of us has our own Galilee. We need to resume the journey, reminding ourselves that we are born and reborn thanks to an invitation given gratuitously to us out of love. This is always the point from which we can set out anew, especially in times of crisis and trial.
But there is more. Galilee was the farthest region from where they were: from Jerusalem. And not only geographically. Galilee was also the farthest place from the sacredness of the Holy City. It was an area where people of different religions lived: it was the “Galilee of the Gentiles” (Mt 4:15). Jesus sends them there and asks them to start again from there. What does this tell us? That the message of hope should not be confined to our sacred places, but should be brought to everyone. For everyone is in need of reassurance, and if we, who have touched “the Word of life” (1 Jn 1:1) do not give it, who will? How beautiful it is to be Christians who offer consolation, who bear the burdens of others and who offer encouragement: messengers of life in a time of death! In every Galilee, in every area of the human family to which we all belong and which is part of us – for we are all brothers and sisters – may we bring the song of life! Let us silence the cries of death, no more wars! May we stop the production and trade of weapons, since we need bread, not guns. Let the abortion and killing of innocent lives end. May the hearts of those who have enough be open to filling the empty hands of those who do not have the bare necessities.
Those women, in the end, “took hold” of Jesus’ feet (Mt 28:9); feet that had travelled so far to meet us, to the point of entering and emerging from the tomb. The women embraced the feet that had trampled death and opened the way of hope. Today, as pilgrims in search of hope, we cling to you, Risen Jesus. We turn our backs on death and open our hearts to you, for you are Life itself.
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What is this nostalgia he’s always going on about?
Hi Gilberta,
Very good question!
The 1970s rock band Chicago once asked: “Does anybody really know…? Does anybody really care?” I suggest not, except perchance to laugh, to inhabit for a little while the rabbit hole in Alice’s Wonderland, or to prepare for future moves on one’s chessboard.
Meanwhile, I’m contemplating this interim battle cry: “Beware overstuffed colostomy bags!”
Assolutamente confermato. Stanno facendo un calcio mercato dello spirito per gareggiare a chi transita i “giovani” contro i vecchi. Una nuova forma ridicola di eutanasia spirituale. Come pure inutile che ti bardi d’oro e di diamanti e poi rispondi con freddezza senza cuore a chi ti dice che ti stima. Non parliamo delle offese tramite web in terza persona fatte da preti. E pure questa ventata di tristezza che perseguita tutto ciò che non è serioso. Io concordo con la critica di Papa Francesco.
Si sta costruendo una chiesa parallela di falsi perfettini eugeneticamente selezionati.
The Master Chef of Happy Meals reveals his latest menu.
Frighteningly and criminally irresponsible. But do we any longer expect otherwise?
The only people showing nostalgia are the Hippies currently in senior positions in the Vatican, who are still hellbent on “updating” the Church to the 1970’s whether it works or not.
Il Papa is carrying on about his ideological dilemma with traditional liturgy, traditional doctrine, traditional practice. Adverse response to Traditionis Custodes [jettison of traditional liturgy to preserve tradition means preserving it secured in the Vatican archives]. Ideologically, the premise is, Faith that is not inculturated is not authentic. Apparently his conviction that the Church to be effective must shed nostalgia [religious vocations in this context are reactionary] over tradition. Acculturation, a cultural anthropological process, refers to adapting one’s culture to the new cultural environment, whereas here the Pontiff is speaking about Catholicism’s acculturation to the current culture. Conceptually it requires accommodation rather than conversion. Obstinacy, complaint, resistance is seen in the many dour religious who take everything so seriously vacant of any joie de vivre. Folks, you out there delaying the inevitable evolutionary process of Catholicity into something exciting, joyous, “May the Holy Virgin protect you. She knows all about encounter, fraternity, patience, and inculturation”. A truly pious assumption. That Our Lady with admirable humility comes to His Holiness’ aid during this controversy and blesses Amoris Laetitia, Fratelli Tutti, and Amazonia.
In 1940 Winston Churchill posed this to the House of Commons: “If we open a quarrel between the past and the present, we shall find that we have lost the future.”
And if no future, then the pope’s “oddest and most ridiculous Gnostic tendencies.”
Can’t help myself…the pope’s script-writers lack all perspective. Children with access to word processors…There’s nothing more frightful than what John Courtney Murray called a “learned ignorance.”
The scripted “siren song” and “nostalgia” thingy. They ought to get out of the office more. Reconnect with Sacrosanctum Concilium from the Second Vatican Council.
During his hospitalization, having edited Pope Francis into a box canyon with a fragmentary and skewed survey (re TLM), and regarding the “reality of the people” AND AND AND the reality of the perennial Catholic Church!–now they’re trying to cover they ass-umptions.
Communion with the saints of the past, and the Catholic practices that remind us that such has value for our souls, what an invincibly small mind would call “ideology,” that same smallness of thought submits is less sustaining than the wisdom of the boob tube?
When I go to the historic source that is the Bible I can see all manner of examples how inculturation can take place. In the Old Testament the Israelite people all too often inculturated in a manner that was corrosive to the faith and their covenant with God. The outcome of the book of Ruth was radically different than the outcome of King Solomon and his foreign wives. Then there were the Ten Lost Tribes of Israel. The modernists appear to be taking after King Solomon and the Lost Tribes. Their behavior would suggest that the Great Commission has reached its expiration date and that the Church is in need of a new mission.
“To be with Jesus is to be joyful,” Pope Francis said.
Even as we walk the Way of the Cross with Jesus?
Let’s observe Francis. His face often expresses undue dourness. Perhaps he lost his traveling companion.