Easter Vigil 2020
 
Dear Brothers and Sisters,
 
The Gospel tells us how the Church’s first Easter encounter with the Risen Lord was a quiet affair.  While almost all of the disciples were locked down at home, two women of their number went up to the Tomb in the dark as their representatives and carried out the necessary rites on behalf of them all.  They met with an Angel, a divine officer whose task it was to perform the Easter ceremonies and transform the Lord’s Death into Life by rolling away the stone.  And somewhere between the women’s rites on behalf of the People and the Angel’s ceremonies on behalf of God, the Lord Jesus, Himself, appeared Risen in all His Glory.  It signalled the end of a period of terrible darkness that had descended upon the Church, which now watched the Dawn breaking to its great surprise over a New and Glorious Eternal Day.  Seeing this New Dawn, the Women somehow knew: It would never be dark again, and there would be no need for lamplight or sunlight, because the Lord their God would be shining on them forever. 
 
This year we celebrate our Easter Vigil with most of us, the Lord’s faithful, also locked down at home, and we watch on as a small congregation of our representatives carries out our Easter Duties on our behalf.  In the Communion of Faith we are all here, God’s good people together with His divine ministers, the Lord coming to meet us with His Easter Greetings.
 
Magdalen and other Mary who came to the Tomb observed their ancient Jewish faith which told them to stay at home for the Passover Sabbath, even though they must have wanted so dearly to go up to be with Jesus in His place of rest.  Not being with Him physically in that place where they could be around Him in His Bodily Presence must have been a particularly keen sadness for them. 
 
But not all sadness is bad!  Saint Paul teaches the Corinthians about a godly grief that does us no harm at all, because it leads to repentance and renewal.  Such godly grief can fill us with alarm and indignation at any unfaithfulness there might have been in our discipleship or in our Church.  It fills us with new zeal for reform, new earnestness in our faith, new eagerness to be one again with the Lord. 
 
I too, as your Bishop, know how sad you have been to have had your precious Holy Mass taken away from you, and your beloved churches closed.  It was a hard decision for our bishops to make, and one that caused us much grief, soul searching and bitterness at the time.  But now, like Saint Paul seeing how you have responded with such love of God, I no longer regret it.  In fact, like him I rejoice because, by God’s marvellous Providence, this loss has become godly grief on your part; a sadness that, at every point, has proved you guiltless and, in the end, is leading to salvation.   You have proved that, while our churches may be closed, our faith is more than ever alive and, even now, undergoing the renewal for which we have so long awaited and so dearly hoped.  Like the holy women who got up and made their way to the Tomb at the crack of dawn, I am sure you will flock back to your parishes at the first opportunity.    
 
Of course, returning to the Tomb, the women naturally imagined everything would be the same, just as they had left it when they closed the doors on the Lord’s dwelling.  So, they went looking for the One who was Crucified, just as He had been.
 
But the Angel soon disavowed them of that presumption.  Though they might be returning to the same place, he tells them, they should know that it is now an entirely different scene!  It is no longer a place where they once gathered in shame around a God Whom their culture had tried and condemned in its criminal courts; a God Who was dead to a world that thought itself more powerful than He.  No, during their Sabbath rest at home everything had changed, and everything was now quite different; unrecognisably so.  That scene of defeat was now one of victory and renown. 
 
In fact, the world is now so transformed that those charged with putting a seal on the Good News and keeping it under control are now terrified to death before its new power.  The women are to note it but not to dwell on such incidental matters. 
 
Instead they are to be fearless in this new reality, and learn to look for and find Him in a very different way than their faith had known until now.  They will, from now on, follow Him with Easter faith, confident, brave and courageous; convinced witnesses of the Lord’s Risen Power and Glory.  That is to say, they can no longer find him in the ‘same-old-same-old’ Sabbath routine of former times, but now only as missionary disciples, set upon spreading His Good News and following Him along the Way of their lives in the world.
 
In the end, the Women enter these first Easter rites in an ever deeper and brighter encounter with the Risen Lord.  They approach with their spices to purify His Body from the odour of death.  Then they hear the Angel proclaim the Gospel to them that the Lord is alive, which fills them with an awe and joy they cannot imagine ever being surpassed.  Yet it is indeed surpassed in their encounter with the Lord Himself, Risen in His Body.  His Presence makes them fall to their knees in humble worship, for they see He is not a ghost but is truly Risen; and all before Lord sends them out in mission to encourage their fellow disciples, telling them how they, too, can meet Him anew. 
 
In Holy Mass we make the same journey as the Holy Women to the Lord: confession and penance purifying anything of the Lord that has died in us; the Good News of His Word filling us with awe and joy; the Risen Lord in the Consecration summoning our reverent homage; His commission sending us out into the world to: Proclaim the Gospel of the Lord.
 
With the Women, let us go up to meet the Lord this night, Who comes to greet us at the Dawn of a Happy New Day; the Risen One Who, being gone for only a short while, is now returned, in His Church and in the world, having made all things new!