Easter Vigil 2014 Homily

Easter Vigil 2014

Primary readings: Romans 6: 3-11 / Matthew 28: 1-10

Good Friday in Guayaquil, Ecuador was usually the heaviest work-day for us Dominicans at the Iglesia Santo Domingo de Guzman.  The day kicked with the Via Crucis, or Way of the Cross, up the winding street that snaked all over the big hill of Cerro del Carmen, with its expansive myriad of houses. 

                                                         

Our procession attracted a crowd, perhaps nearly 300 people walking along and many more watching from their front porches.   However, the big Via Crucis was in the southern part of the city, where thousands would make the pilgrimage –like procession every Good Friday. 

I always felt that there was too much emphasis on Good Friday, since by the time the Easter Vigil and Easter Sunday came around, much, much smaller crowds would gather.  Many have studied the cultural and religious differences between our culture and theirs, but when you are in the thick of it, you see how it goes much deeper than intellectual analysis.  Did they focus too much on death and suffering, too much on the Passion of Christ and less on his Resurrection?

Shifting the focus, do we in the U.S. focus too little on the Passion of Christ and his death and too much on Resurrection?  There is little doubt, though, that one without the other makes little sense. 

In the Easter Vigil liturgy, nine primary texts from Sacred Scripture are proclaimed that range from the primordial origins of our humanity to the full flowering of our faith.  The readings speak of hope and promise.  However, they speak so loudly and eloquently because they all form a rousing chorus of life in the midst of death, of light shining forth in the darkness.

Notice the unflinching spirit of St. Paul in the reading from his letter to the Romans as he addresses head-on the reality of death:  “Are you unaware that we who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death?”  No mincing words there.  But, as he makes so clear, death is a back-drop that is there, but in Him who is life, we have the strength to overcome it.  “We were indeed buried with him through baptism into death, so that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might live in newness of life.” 

As I reflect on my father’s recent passing, I realize that in him, I saw death up close and personal. Still, beyond the sadness and bonds of affection, I will always be able to recognize how my father’s spirit seemed drawn to something that was beyond him and us. His final breaths had a purpose, but they ceased to be necessary.  Something or more truly, someone was at work beckoning him …. and us.  Life will prevail and in ways we might barely understand, but fully hope. 

Mary Magdalene and the other Mary ran with haste to the tomb of Jesus.  We can imagine their quick and sure steps were a way of shaking off any attacks of nervousness and doubt.  They were determined; they sensed, against all the physical evidence, that in Jesus, life could not be stifled.   

Were they afraid?  Absolutely.  Were they faithful to Christ even after death?  No question.   Death surrounded them, but they pressed on. 

They had seen love and life himself die on the cross and laid in the tomb.  They also sensed that love and life will never pass. Filled with an incredible array of human emotions they ran to the tomb, but those feelings were not the force that got them there.  The Lord promised, they trusted.

   Tulane Catholic Center 2014 Cookout, Benson Plaza, Tulane University