Easter Vigil 2019
 
Remember what He told you when He was still in Galilee: that the Son of Man had to be handed over into the power of sinful men and be crucified and rise again on the third day!
 
Dear brothers and sisters, it took two men in brilliant clothes to suddenly appear at the side of the faithful disciples to remind them of the essential message of the Paschal Mystery, which alone makes sense of the world in which we live.  It is a message the Risen Jesus Himself repeated in the Easter catechesis He gave to His downbeat disciples as He came upon them and accompanied them along the Road to Emmaus: You foolish men, so slow to believe the full message of the Scriptures! Was it not ordained that the Messiah should suffer and so enter into His glory?  Since He had a whole Sunday afternoon’s walk to pass with them, the Risen Lord had time for an extended teaching and so, beginning with Moses and the prophets, He went through all the passages in the Scriptures that were about Himself.  Later that same evening He appeared to the other disciples, offered them His peace, let them touch His Body, shared a meal with them and then opened their minds to the same essential Gospel truth, written in the Scriptures: that the Christ should suffer and on the third day rise from the dead, and that in His name repentance and forgiveness of sins should be preached to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem.
 
The Lord concluded by revealing to them, His fledgling Church established in the heart of the Paschal Mystery, that: You are witnesses of these things!
 
Brothers and sisters, in all this the Lord was revealing to His Church that, from then on, it would be a unique witness of the truth and meaning of His messianic mission on earth, to suffer and so enter into His glory .. for the forgiveness of the sins of the world.  And He meant witnesses in its real sense.  You will be martyrs of this truth, or you will live this truth of suffering and glory in your own lives, even in your death, if need be.
 
Saint Paul understood this and taught it to His Church in Rome.    He taught them: When we - as the Church which is the Lord’s Body on earth - were baptised in Christ Jesus we were baptised in His death; in other words, … as His Church, we went into the Tomb with Him and joined Him in death, so that as Christ was raised from the dead by the Father’s glory, we too might live a new life.  It was not enough for the Church to be a reporter or journalist of this truth.  Instead, in union with Christ we imitate His death, so as to imitate Him in his resurrection. 
 
It is not easy for our Church to understand, much less embrace, the call of the Lord to follow Him in His footsteps all the way to His death.  No matter how plain the essential logic of the Gospel is, and how often we hear it told, something in us recoils from the idea of the need for suffering and rejection, and is slow to believe that the destiny of the Church is to be put to death in every age by worldly fashions, ideologies and powers, and  to be buried with our Master in His death, if we have any hope of imitating Him in the wondrous experience of His Resurrection.
 
The death of the Church comes about in two ways; firstly in our constant efforts to reform and purify ourselves, by destroying the sinful body and freeing it from the slavery of sin; and, secondly, by accepting our fate, like the Lord’s, to be handed over into the power of sinful men and crucified. 
 
The women who go to the Tomb with spices prepared offer us a precious example of how we, as Christians, should live through the death of the Church in our own age. While the world rejoiced, even gloated, over the Lord’s death, and many believers, scandalised by Him, lapsed from their faith and kept their distance, the women stayed loyal and close to Him in death and did what they could with their spices to save and uphold what dignity He had preserved. 
 
In our own times good souls like these are not lacking, who stand by our Church in many places where it has died and manage what remains with grace and love.  They suffer the emptiness of their church, like the empty Tomb, while so many of their fellow Catholics lapse away and join a world that does not care or even mocks and condemns what these loyal souls stay to love.  Like the Death of the Lord the demise of their church has been so swift, unexpected and decisive that they are at their wits’ end, not knowing what to think or do, beyond remaining loyal to a life, once so vibrant and lovely, that has been taken away. 
 
Brothers and sisters, let us commend this night these Lord’s few, faithful ones across the world who keep vigil over His Church in its death in our times as best as they know how.  They will surely be the most admirably immortalised and highly rewarded when the Lord and His Church come again in glory.
 
Yet for all that, dear brothers and sisters, the response of the women to the Empty Tomb will not be the final message of the Scriptures, nor of the destiny of our Church. 
 
To find the fullest response we turn to Peter’s reaction when he heard the women’s report of the empty Tomb .  He immediately went running to the Tomb, bent down and saw the binding cloths.  This was enough, together with the women’s report - that the Son of Man would be handed over … and rise again - for him to go back home amazed.  Hearing of the Lord’s suffering he now understood, seeing the emptiness where the Lord had been he believed. For Him the women’s account of the suffering Christ Who had risen did not seem pure nonsense, as it did to the other disciples who did not believe, but the ultimate fulfilment of all the Lord had prophesied and taught him.
 
Thereafter, in the strength of the Holy Spirit, Peter began his preaching far and wide, based on this one Gospel message and essential Paschal catechesis.   To the crowd gathered in Jerusalem Peter will proclaim: This Jesus whom you crucified, according to the plan of God, God Has raised up, because it was not possible for him to be held by death. 
 
Peter knew that Christ’s Resurrection did not end with Christ but simply set in motion the Father’s promise to us and to our children, that is, to His Holy Church, Christ’s Body of which He is the ever living and glorious Head and to all of us, its members.
 
Dear brothers and sisters, our Father’s real Easter will is for us to tend our dead and empty Church in every age only a little while. But soon to proclaim with joy: where the world had seen Christ’s Body, the Church, buried it is nowhere to be found, for it is risen again, as He said it would !
 
We cannot begin our rejoicing in this Easter Season without first giving thanks and blessing to the Blessed Virgin Mary, whose body gave life to our Messiah  and whose Yes to the Angel gave the world its Risen Lord!
 
Resurrexit, sicut dixit! Alleluia! Alleluia! Alleluia!