Baptism to three people and the homily prepared by Pope Francis. Cardinal Giovan Battista Re, by delegation of the Pontiff, presides over the Easter vigil in the Basilica of San Pietro. In the atrium the usual rites of the blessing of the fire and the preparation of the Pasquale candle, then the procession towards the altar with the singing of the Exultet.
“Pope Francis is spiritually with us”, recalls the cardinal king reading the homily that we report in full
It is night when the Easter candle slowly advances to the altar. It is night when the song of theno opens our hearts to emergency, because it will keep it is “flooded with such great splendor: the light of the eternal king has won the darkness of the world” (Easter early). At the end of the night the facts narrated in the newly proclaimed Gospel take place (cf. Lk 24,1-12): the divine light of the resurrection turns on and the Easter of the Lord happens when the sun is still about to appear; At the first light of dawn it is seen that the large stone, placed on the sepulcher of Jesus, has been overturned and some women arrive in that place bringing the veil of mourning. The darkness envelops the bewilderment and fear of the disciples.
Everything happens in the night.
Thus, the Easter vigil reminds us that The light of the resurrection illuminates the path step by step, bursts into the darkness of the story without clamorrefers in our heart in a discreet way. And it corresponds to a humble faith, without any triumphalism. The Easter of the Lord is not a spectacular event with which God affirms himself and obliges to believe in Him; It is not a goal that Jesus reaches for an easy way, circumventing the ordeal; And we can not live it in a casual way and without inner hesitation. On the contrary, the resurrection is similar to small sprouts of light that make their way gradually, without making noise, sometimes still threatened by the night and by incredulity.
This “style” of God frees us from an abstract religiosity, deluded from thinking that the resurrection of the Lord solves everything magical. Quite the opposite: we cannot celebrate Easter without continuing to deal with the nights we carry in the heart and with the shadows of death that often thicken on the world. Christ won sin and destroyed death but, in our earthly history, the power of his resurrection is still making. And this fulfillment, like a small sprout of light, is entrusted to us, because we keep it and make it grow. Brothers and sisters, this is the call that, especially in the jubilee year, we must hear strong within us: we sprout the hope of Easter in our life and in the world! When we still feel the weight of death within our heart, when we see the shadows of evil continue their noisy march on the world, when we feel burning in our flesh and in our society the wounds of selfishness or violence, let’s not lose heart, we return to the announcement of this night: the light slowly shines even if we are in darkness; The hope of a new life and a world finally freed awaits us; A new beginning may surprise us although sometimes it seems impossible for us, because Christ has won death.
This announcement, which widens the heart, fills us with hope. In fact, in the Risen Jesus we have the certainty that our personal history and the path of humanity, while still immersed in one night where the lights appear by noisy, are in the hands of God; And he, in his great love, will not let us falter and will not allow evil to have the last word. At the same time, this hope, already accomplished in Christ, also remains a goal to be achieved for us: it has been entrusted to us because we become credible witnesses and because the kingdom of God is made his way into the hearts of today’s women and men.
As Sant’Agostino reminds us, “the resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ marks the new life of those who believe in him; And this mystery of his death and resurrection you have to know him in depth and reproduce him in your life “(Speech 231, 2). Reproduce Easter in our life and become messengers of hope, manufacturers of hope while many twenty of death blow again on us.
We can do it with our words, with our small daily gestures, with our choices inspired by the Gospel. All our life can be the presence of hope. We want to be for those who lack faith in the Lord, For those who have lost the way, for those who have surrendered or have a curved back under the weights of life; for those who are alone or has closed themselves in their pain; for all the poor and oppressed of the earth; for humiliated and killed women; for children never born and for those mistreated; for the victims of the war. To each and everyone we bring the hope of Easter!
I like to remember a myth of the thirteenth century, Hadewijch of Antwerp, who inspired by the Canticle of Canticles and describing the suffering for the lack of the beloved, invokes the return of love because – he says – “There is a turning point at my darkness” (Hadewijch, poems visions letters, Genoa 2000, 23).
The risen Christ is the definitive turning point of human history. He is the hope that he does not set. He is the love that accompanies us and supports us. He is the future of historythe last destination towards which we walk, to be welcomed in that new life in which the Lord himself will dry all our tears “and there will be no more death neither mourning nor lament or anxious” (ap 21,4). And this hope of Easter, this “turn in the darkness”, we must announce it to everyone.
Sisters, brothers, Easter time is season of hope. “There is still fear, there is still a painful awareness of sin, but there is also a light that breaks. (…) Easter brings the good news that, although things seem to go worse in the world, evil has already been won. Easter allows us to affirm that although God seem very far away and we remain absorbed by many small realities, our Lord walks on the road with us. (…) There are many rays of hope that throw light on the path of our life “(H. Nouwen, Prayers from silence. The path of hope, Brescia 2000, 55-56). We make room for the light of the Risen One! And we will become manufacturers of hope for the world.
