Information service of the Pontifical Mission Societies since 1927
Vatican City (Agenzia Fides) – At 9pm in St Peter's Basilica on Saturday 11 April the Holy Father Benedict XVI presided the solemn Mass of the Easter Vigil. During his homily the Pope dwelt on the Gospel and the Apostles' question about the meaning of the word “resurrection”, he said: “ Christmas, the birth of the divine Infant, we can somehow immediately comprehend. We can love the child, we can imagine that night in Bethlehem, Mary’s joy, the joy of Saint Joseph and the shepherds, the exultation of the angels. But what is resurrection? It does not form part of our experience, and so the message often remains to some degree beyond our understanding, a thing of the past. The Church tries to help us understand it, by expressing this mysterious event in the language of symbols in which we can somehow contemplate this astonishing event. During the Easter Vigil, the Church points out the significance of this day principally through three symbols: light, water, and the new song – the Alleluia".
The first symbol explained by the Holy Father was light: “ God’s creation […] begins with the command: “Let there be light!” (Gen 1:3). Where there is light, life is born, chaos can be transformed into cosmos. In the Biblical message, light is the most immediate image of God […] The resurrection of Jesus this is brought to completion . With the resurrection, the Lord’s day enters the nights of history. Beginning with the resurrection, God’s light spreads throughout the world and throughout history. Day dawns. This Light alone – Jesus Christ – is the true light, something more than the physical phenomenon of light. He is pure Light: God himself, who causes a new creation to be born in the midst of the old, transforming chaos into cosmos.”; the light of God “ separates light from darkness within creation, that is to say, good from evil. It points out to humanity the right path to true life. It points out the good, it demonstrates the truth and it leads us towards love, which is the deepest meaning contained in the Torah”. Present the Torah, the Word of God, is Christ “ the true light that humanity needs”. Benedict XVI continued: “Christians know that [...]Christ is the great Light from which all life originates. He enables us to recognize the glory of God from one end of the earth to the other. He points out our path. He is the Lord’s day which, as it grows, is gradually spreading throughout the earth. Now, living with him and for him, we can live in the light.”.
The Pope then spoke about the sign of the Paschal candle, with which the Church represents the Light of Christ, whose flame is both light and warmth. "The Paschal candle burns, and is thereby consumed: Cross and resurrection are inseparable. From the Cross, from the Son’s self-giving, light is born, true radiance comes into the world."
Baptism, the Sacrament of illumination, is linked inseparably with the resurrection of Christ. In the Risen Christ " we recognize what is true and what is false, what is radiance and what is darkness”. “ On one occasion when Christ looked upon the people who had come to listen to him, seeking some guidance from him, he felt compassion for them, because they were like sheep without a shepherd (cf. Mk 6:34). Amid the contradictory messages of that time, they did not know which way to turn. What great compassion he must feel in our own time too – on account of all the endless talk that people hide behind, while in reality they are totally confused.”. Therefore the Holy Father prayed that the light of the candle of Baptism, lit by Christ in every Christian, might never cease to burn and indeed “ become ever stronger and brighter, so that we, with him, can be people of the day, bright stars lighting up our time.”.
The Pope then reflected on the second symbol of the Easter Vigil , water: "It appears in Sacred Scripture, and hence also in the inner structure of the Sacrament of Baptism, with two opposed meanings. On the one hand there is the sea, which appears as a force antagonistic to life on earth, continually threatening it; yet God has placed a limit upon it. Hence the book of Revelation says that in God’s new world, the sea will be no more (cf. 21:1). It is the element of death. And so it becomes the symbolic representation of Jesus’ death on the Cross: Christ descended into the sea, into the waters of death, as Israel did into the Red Sea. Having risen from death, he gives us life. This means that Baptism is not only a cleansing, but a new birth: with Christ we, as it were, descend into the sea of death, so as to rise up again as new creatures."
The third symbol illustrated by the Pope was the singing of the Alleluia, “singing a new song”: “ what happens when a person is touched by the light of the resurrection, and thus comes into contact with Life itself, with Truth and Love? - the Pope asked - He cannot merely speak about it. Speech is no longer adequate. He has to sing. The first reference to singing in the Bible comes after the crossing of the Red Sea. Israel has risen out of slavery. […] At the Easter Vigil, year after year, we Christians intone this song after the third reading, we sing it as our song, because we too, through God’s power, have been drawn forth from the water and liberated for true life. ”.
Last of all the Pope mentioned a parallel found in the Book of Revelation of Saint John with the story of Moses’ song after Israel’s liberation from Egypt. "Before the beginning of the seven last plagues imposed upon the earth, the seer has a vision of something “like a sea of glass mingled with fire; and those who had conquered the beast and its image and the number of its name, standing beside the sea of glass with harps of God in their hands. And they sing the song of Moses, the servant of God, and the song of the Lamb …” (Rev 15:2f.). This image describes the situation "Church, so to speak, always walk on the sea, through the fire and the cold? Humanly speaking, she ought to sink. […] She is standing on history’s waters of death and yet she has already risen. Singing, she grasps at the Lord’s hand, which holds her above the waters. And she knows that she is thereby raised outside the force of gravity of death and evil." The Pope concluded: "But once Christ is risen, the gravitational pull of love is stronger than that of hatred; the force of gravity of life is stronger than that of death.”. (Agenzia Fides 11/4/2009, righe 58, parole 1078)
