EASTER VIGIL
THIS NIGHT IS DIFFERENT, BECAUSE …
The experience of Easter is always lived with others, in community, in every gesture of affection, hope, help, in every moment that we give and receive life.
This night is different than every other night, because it is the night of life, the night when God’s promises of love for humanity are fulfilled through history, because today we experience in the Risen Jesus the love that God has for all Creation, because tonight we are liberated, healed, saved, because today we know that life, love, hope, goodness, beauty, are capable of overcoming any fear, pain, error, failure and death.
This night is different, it is a holy night because we are part of a whole that is born with the same creation of everything that exists, and that is connected throughout all of history, as we hear in the Old Testament readings today, a deep experience of human relationship with God, who reveals himself through time, as a God of love, of life, of care, of tenderness, of promise, a God who is Father and Mother of the human race, who never abandons his people in their search of their fulfillment and their wellbeing.
This night is a night of joy, this joy born from the lips and heart overflowing all our ruins and miseries, surpassing and overcoming all our fears of death, all tears and daily pains, knowing that death, pain, suffering, do have not the last word… that the final word is in a smile of Love, in the embrace of God to Jesus Christ, the one who returns him into life, and a full life. And with the Resurrection of Jesus Christ is born the hope that our loved ones who in recent days left our side, will now enjoy that eternal joy. Thus, the sadness of not seeing them again becomes a joy of faith, love, and hope that someday we will participate together in the glory of God.
This night is different from other nights because through this night the power is given to us to celebrate that profound mystery of life that overcomes death, that mystery of love, that mystery of liberation and salvation. This night frees us from everything that does not allow us to grow. Also, it frees us from fear, from death, from senselessness. Because we celebrate salvation, and we celebrate the possibility of realizing the dream that God has for each one of us, the possibility that our life will really be filled with life.
This night is different, because it is the night when the promises of God’s love for humanity are fulfilled in the history, because today we experience in Jesus the love that God has for all of creation, and that love comes to us.
To believe in the resurrection is to believe in the God of life. The ardent desire of the heart to live and to live always has in the resurrection of Jesus the adequate response from God. Death has been overcome, death is consummated, death has been transformed into life through the God that Jesus defended unto death. Happy Easter!