Mass of the Easter Vigil 2025

Today we celebrate the Resurrection of Jesus Christ and to mark this event the phrase “Alleluia” reappears in our liturgy. “Alleluia” is a Latinized form of the Semitic Hebrew word which means “Praise be to Jahweh.” The Semitic Arabs and all Muslims still use their form of this word, Hamdu’llah, in their everyday speech for the everyday goodness they perceive as God’s gift. The reappearance of this word in our liturgy indicates to us the theme of this day and the literally earthshaking event it celebrates: the theme is Joy.

You wouldn’t pick that up from today’s readings or the Gospel, especially not from the Gospel that records the immediate response of the disciples the news of the empty tomb. The first witnesses to the empty tomb were the great women followers of Jesus, Mary Magdalene, Joanna, and Mary the mother of James, those women who cared for the very mundane needs of Jesus and his male followers as they traveled like a gypsy caravan from town to town as Jesus preached the coming of the Kingdom of God. The women were astonished and carried the news of the Resurrection to the apostles, who were in hiding, in fear for their own lives. The apostles did not believe the women; their story seemed like nonsense. So Peter and John raced to the tomb to see for themselves. But all they could see was what was not, the body of Jesus was not there. Although Mary Magdalene stayed at the tomb after Peter and John left, and Jesus then appeared to her – which perhaps tells us something about the spiritual acumen of women – only later that day did Jesus himself appear to the apostles, to turn their astonishment into joy.

Joy is the message of Easter, and joy is to be the mark of the Christian. I could not say it any better than did our Holy Father Pope Francis in his homily on Palm Sunday twelve years ago: “Do not be men and women of sadness: a Christian can never be sad! Never give way to discouragement! Ours is not a joy that comes from having many possessions, but from having encountered a Person: Jesus, from knowing that with him we are never alone, even at difficult moments, even when our life’s journey comes up against problems and obstacles that seem insurmountable, and there are so many of them! We accompany, we follow Jesus, but above all we know that he accompanies us and carries us on his shoulders. This is our joy, this is the hope that we must bring to this world of ours. Let us bring the joy of the faith to everyone!”

Healey Plaza on the grounds

Those are beautiful ideas expressed in beautiful words, but oh so difficult to internalize and put into practice. We live in a society that inflames our appetites for its products, and we respond by seeking and acquiring those products. If we can’t acquire them, we experience the sadness and anxiety of unfilled desires, and our society gives us messages that we are incomplete and inadequate. If we all don’t actively seek to acquire the products, the economy falters and everyone suffers. If our desires are fulfilled, then we find it requires more time and energy to use or care for what we have acquired, and our time and energy is spent in ultimately meaningless tasks, and we find again we are anxious, having not enough time to fulfill all the desires that have been built up in us, desires that we misperceive now as needs. We just have to look at the proliferation of the unending parade of more sophisticated smartphones, androids, iPhones, iPads, tablets, smartwatches, etc., etc., and how the market responds – “the market” being the total of individual persons whose appetites have been inflamed. People will stand in line over night to buy a new product in the first hours of its release. All of our labor saving devices simply cause more labor of a different kind. They fill up our time with busy-ness in a self-satisfying slavery to the maintenance of a complex, ultimately dehumanizing lifestyle with grave consequences for our sustainability and our planet.

In the face of this, the Christian is meant to radiate joy, because the Christian knows what has ultimate meaning, because the Christian knows that death, that thing which is the ultimate downer to the orgy of self-satisfaction which so much of modern life has become, that death is NOT the end of it all, but is the beginning of a more perfect life of Justice, Tranquility, the Liberty of the Children of God, and above all of perfect love, unhindered by the material stuff to which our earthly lives are so attached. All this is made possible by Jesus Christ and is demonstrated to us by His Resurrection, which is God’s promise to us that we will share in His Resurrection to that life, eternal life. Pope Francis reminds us: We must not be afraid of sacrifice. The path to Resurrection leads to and through the cross. Christ’s Cross embraced with love does not lead to sadness, but to joy! Christ’s cross leads directly to the Resurrection. If we are not about love and joy, then we are really missing something important. Christians and preachers who shout messages of fire and brimstone, of condemnation and negativity, who induce fear and anxiety, who exude smugness and anticipation of vengeance, they are far from the Gospel mark of faith, hope, love and joy. If we know the risen Jesus Christ, no one and no thing can take that joy from us, no one and no thing can separate us from the love of God in Jesus Christ, not even death.

So let us exude joy. Let this be an abbey, a school, a community of joy. May our joy be palpable in all our activities, all our worship, all our prayers. As we as individuals and as societies perform the corporal and spiritual works of mercy, may we perform them with joy. May we live such that our friends, relatives and neighbors want to know: “Where do they go to Church? They are so happy.” Jesus Christ did not suffer and die for us, did not rise again for us, so that we should be anxious, guilt-ridden or downcast. For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him might not perish but might have eternal life. It was all for love, to free us from fear, anxiety, hopelessness so that we might love Christ in and through others. Today we celebrate the attainment of the pinnacle of that love. This really is a day the Lord has made – so let us rejoice and be glad, not just today but every day. May we be a source of joy to each other and to our community. May we channel our joy to our Church and the world. May our joy in the full meaning of the Resurrection be our participation in this life of the Kingdom of God. Jesus tells us in Luke 17:21: behold, the kingdom of God is among you. Our faith tells us the risen Jesus is among us. Happy Easter!

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