Easter Vigil

There is no other night like this night, the night where darkness becomes brighter than day, not by natural light, but by transcendent light; for this is the light of Christ rising in glory which shatters no ordinary darkness, but the hopeless darkness of the grave, of death and of sin. So on this wonderful night even ordinary candle light becomes extraordinary. For when we came into this darkened chapel, empty as though it were a tomb, we filled it with light and then listened to the ‘Exsultet’, the ecstatic announcement of the resurrection: ‘This is the night’, was the constantly repeated phrase, when God led the people of Israel out of slavery in Egypt by their passage through the Red Sea, the night when Christ broke the prison bars of death; a night so holy that it dispels wickedness, washes guilt away, restores both innocence to the fallen, and joy to mourners; this truly blessed night is the one on which things of heaven are wedded to those of earth, and all that is divine to all that is human.

For Christ’s new life utterly surpasses the one He gave up on the cross, and yet wonderfully it is still His own. For it is as man, as son of Adam, that He died and was buried, and as Son of Man too that He has risen, glorious from the grave, incapable of ever dying again.

It is only once we had been enlightened by this light of the risen Christ, and after we had cast out the darkness with His light, that we turned back again to the pages of Scripture, to see how they have now been fulfilled, made perfect, only in that light. So we have heard how God made all things in the beginning, and made them all good, delighting in the work of His hands – and then saw that all this was finally to be made new in the resurrection. Then we heard how Abraham, our father in faith, offered his son Isaac in sacrifice at God’s command. But although God in His mercy saved Isaac, nevertheless, as we once again witnessed yesterday, God did not spare His own Son, but gave Him up for us all. Then we heard of the origin of this Passover feast in the dramatic account of God’s leading his people out of Egypt under Moses. And after this we heard from the prophets that God would at last put His chosen People’s sufferings and infidelities behind them, and crown them with beauty and glory; that God would take away His people’s hunger and thirst by giving them heavenly food and drink, and would make a new and eternal covenant with them, pouring clean water over them to cleanse them of sin and renewing their hearts to be able to love Him in return for His undying love.

After all that, and having heard the Gospel account of the women at the empty tomb, what else can we do to celebrate this wonderful night? There is only one way we can improve on what we have already heard, and that is to give thanks as our Lord has taught us. Here again we are bringing something to a new perfection.

For if Christ’s priesthood was perfected on the cross, then the victim is perfected in the resurrection, and that holy victim is Christ’s Body and Blood which He has offered for us on the cross, and now offers to us in Holy Communion. For we do not consecrate and receive as Communion a dead body, nor blood poured out in death, but a living and immortal one. Whenever we receive Him, we receive Him as He is now, glorious and immortal, not dead and buried. His Resurrection brings about the transformation of His Sacrifice into a living reality, in which we are about to share once more in Holy Communion. For when He comes to dwell in us as the risen Lord, He brings us to a share in His resurrection here and now.

He is our perfect sacrifice, uniting us with the Father by atoning for our sins; He is our perfect priest, offering Himself to us just as He offers Himself to the Father, making us sharers in His risen Body; He is our perfect new life, the promise of immortality even after death may seem to have had the last word over all mankind – for it is not so. Indeed, Christ’s rising from the dead is the inauguration of a wholly new and glorious life not only for Him, but for all those who believe in Him and receive Him in His life-giving sacraments, as we will do shortly, thus sealing His victory within our own mortal bodies. So Easter is not only our greatest feast, it is the sign and pledge of our future glory. With this all in mind, we cannot stop repeating that cry of praise and joy which we have neither heard nor sung from the beginning of Lent until it was renewed just before the Gospel: ‘Alleluia!’