The candles are lit, symbol of the light entering the world. And, while the din of international conflicts seems to want to drown out every other voice, Pope Leo XIV, in the vigil of Holy Saturday, announcing the resurrection from the deadreads a homily which, starting from the rite of light, transforms into a vibrant appeal to the hope and responsibility of every baptized person.
It speaks of harmony and peace starting from the symbolism of the great Easter candle, symbol of Christ who conquers the darkness. «From this one candle we all lit our lights”, recalls the Pope, underlining that every Christian is called to become, in turn, a “lamp for the world”. A powerful image that speaks of the victory of life over death, of love over hate.
«This is a Vigil full of light», continues the pontiff. After having retraced the painful mysteries of the Passion in recent days, «of the God made for us a man of sorrows, tortured and crucified»the Pope recalls that the Crucifix is the same Creator of the universe: He who «from nothing gave us existence» chose to give us life definitively on the cross, showing «a love without limits.”
Leone retraces the stages of the biblical readings that mark the holy night. From Abraham, whose hand God stops as he is about to sacrifice his son Isaac, to the liberation of the Jews from slavery in Egypt: «The Lord made the sea, a place of death and insurmountable obstacle, the entrance door to the beginning of a new and free life». A message that echoes in the words of the prophets, where God reveals himself as a groom who gathers, a source that quenches thirst and a light that shows the way to peace.
«In all these moments», writes the Pope, “we have seen how God, to the harshness of sin that divides and kills, responds with the power of love that unites and restores life”. This is the “holy mystery” which has its roots “where humanity’s first failure occurred” and extends down the centuries as a “path of reconciliation and grace”.
Finally, taking up the Gospel of Matthew, he highlights the courage of the women who, overcoming pain and fear, go to the tomb. «They expected to find it sealed, with a large stone at the mouth and soldiers standing guard. This is sin: a very heavy barrier that closes us and separates us from God”. Mary of Magdala and the other Mary, however, do not allow themselves to be intimidated. In the earthquake and in the angel sitting on the overturned boulder, they see “the power of God’s love, stronger than any force of evil, capable of dispelling hatred and breaking the harshness of the powerful”.
«Man can kill the body, but the life of the God of love is eternal life, which goes beyond death and which no tomb can imprison”. Hence the announcement that resonates in the basilica: «Greetings to you!». A greeting which, for the Pope, becomes the message that the Church is called to bear witness to «with the words of faith and with the works of charity, singing with our lives the “Hallelujah” that we proclaim with our lips”.
«Even today there is no shortage of tombs to be opened – he states – and often the stones that close them are so heavy and well guarded that they seem immovable». And there are two types of oppression: the internal one, which affects the heart – “mistrust, fear, selfishness, resentment” -, and the external one, which is the consequence: “war, injustice, closure between peoples and nations”.
But “let’s not allow ourselves to be paralyzed!”, the pontiff forcefully exhorts. The call is to follow the example of many men and women who, over the centuries, “with the help of God, have rolled away those stones, perhaps with great difficulty, sometimes at the cost of their lives, but with fruits of good from which we still benefit today”. Ordinary people, “strong in the grace of the Risen One”, who had the courage to speak “with the words of God” and to act “with the energy received from God”.
The Easter Vigil is also the moment in which some catechumens, coming from different parts of the world, receive the sacraments of Christian initiation. «After the long journey of the catechumenate – writes the Pope – today they are reborn in Christ to be new creatures, witnesses of the Gospel». For them and for all the faithful, Leo XIV quotes Saint Augustine again: «Proclaim Christ, sow, spread everywhere what you have conceived in your heart».
Finally an invitation to let ourselves be moved by the example of the saints and witnesses of the faith, “so that everywhere and always, in the world, the Easter gifts of harmony and peace may grow and flourish”.
