EASTER
VIGIL
HOMILY OF HIS HOLINESS BENEDICT
XVI
Saint Peter's Basilica
Holy Saturday, 22 March 2008
Dear Brothers and Sisters,
In his farewell discourse, Jesus announced his imminent death
and resurrection to his disciples with these mysterious words: “I
go away, and I will come to you”, he said (Jn 14:28). Dying
is a “going away”. Even if the body of the deceased
remains behind, he himself has gone away into the unknown,
and we cannot follow him (cf. Jn 13:36). Yet
in Jesus’s case, there is something utterly new, which
changes the world. In the case of our own death, the “going
away” is definitive, there is no return. Jesus,
on the other hand, says of his death: “I go away, and
I will come to you.” It is by going away that he
comes. His going ushers in a completely new and greater
way of being present. By dying he enters into the love
of the Father. His dying is an act of love. Love, however,
is immortal. Therefore, his going away is transformed into
a new coming, into a form of presence which reaches deeper
and does not come to an end. During his earthly life, Jesus,
like all of us, was tied to the external conditions of bodily
existence: to a determined place and a determined time. Bodiliness
places limits on our existence. We cannot be simultaneously
in two different places. Our time is destined to come
to an end. And between the “I” and the “you” there
is a wall of otherness. To be sure, through love we can
somehow enter the other’s existence. Nevertheless,
the insurmountable barrier of being different remains in place. Yet
Jesus, who is now totally transformed through the act of love,
is free from such barriers and limits. He is able not only
to pass through closed doors in the outside world, as the Gospels
recount (cf. Jn 20:19). He can pass through the interior
door separating the “I” from the “you”,
the closed door between yesterday and today, between the past
and the future. On the day of his solemn entry into Jerusalem,
when some Greeks asked to see him, Jesus replied with the parable
of the grain of wheat which has to pass through death in order
to bear much fruit. In this way he foretold his own
destiny: these words were not addressed simply to one
or two Greeks in the space of a few minutes. Through his
Cross, through his going away, through his dying like the grain
of wheat, he would truly arrive among the Greeks, in such a
way that they could see him and touch him through faith. His
going away is transformed into a coming, in the Risen Lord’s
universal manner of presence, yesterday, today and for ever.
He also comes today, and he embraces all times and all places.
Now he can even surmount the wall of otherness that separates
the “I” from the “you”. This happened
with Paul, who describes the process of his conversion and
his Baptism in these words: “it is no longer I
who live, but Christ who lives in me” (Gal 2:20). Through
the coming of the Risen One, Paul obtained a new identity. His
closed “I” was opened. Now he lives in communion
with Jesus Christ, in the great “I” of believers
who have become – as he puts it – “one in
Christ” (Gal 3:28).
So, dear friends, it is clear that, through Baptism, the mysterious
words spoken by Jesus at the Last Supper become present for
you once more. In Baptism, the Lord enters your life through
the door of your heart. We no longer stand alongside or
in opposition to one another. He passes through all these
doors. This is the reality of Baptism: he, the Risen
One, comes; he comes to you and joins his life with yours,
drawing you into the open fire of his love. You become one,
one with him, and thus one among yourselves. At first
this can sound rather abstract and unrealistic. But the more
you live the life of the baptized, the more you can experience
the truth of these words. Believers – the baptized – are
never truly cut off from one another. Continents, cultures,
social structures or even historical distances may separate
us. But when we meet, we know one another on the basis of the
same Lord, the same faith, the same hope, the same love, which
form us. Then we experience that the foundation of our lives
is the same. We experience that in our inmost depths we
are anchored in the same identity, on the basis of which all
our outward differences, however great they may be, become
secondary. Believers are never totally cut off from one another. We
are in communion because of our deepest identity: Christ
within us. Thus faith is a force for peace and reconciliation
in the world: distances between people are overcome,
in the Lord we have become close (cf. Eph 2:13).
The Church expresses the inner reality of Baptism as the gift
of a new identity through the tangible elements used in the
administration of the sacrament. The fundamental element
in Baptism is water; next, in second place, is light, which
is used to great effect in the Liturgy of the Easter Vigil. Let
us take a brief look at these two elements. In the final
chapter of the Letter to the Hebrews, there is a statement
about Christ which does not speak directly of water, but the
Old Testament allusions nevertheless point clearly to the mystery
of water and its symbolic meaning. Here we read: “The
God of peace … brought again from the dead our Lord
Jesus, the great shepherd of the sheep, by the blood of the
eternal covenant” (13:20). In this sentence, there
is an echo of the prophecy of Isaiah, in which Moses is described
as the shepherd whom the Lord brought up from the water, from
the sea (cf. 63:11). And Jesus now appears as the new,
definitive Shepherd who brings to fulfilment what Moses had
done: he leads us out of the deadly waters of the sea,
out of the waters of death. In this context we may recall
that Moses’ mother placed him in a basket in the Nile. Then,
through God’s providence, he was taken out of the water,
carried from death to life, and thus – having himself
been saved from the waters of death – he was able to
lead others through the sea of death. Jesus descended
for us into the dark waters of death. But through his blood,
so the Letter to the Hebrews tells us, he was brought back
from death: his love united itself to the Father’s
love, and thus from the abyss of death he was able to rise
to life. Now he raises us from the waters of death to true
life. This is exactly what happens in Baptism: he draws
us towards himself, he draws us into true life. He leads us
through the often murky sea of history, where we are frequently
in danger of sinking amid all the confusion and perils. In
Baptism he takes us, as it were, by the hand, he leads us along
the path that passes through the Red Sea of this life and introduces
us to everlasting life, the true and upright life. Let
us grasp his hand firmly! Whatever may happen, whatever
may befall us, let us not lose hold of his hand! Let us
walk along the path that leads to life.
In the second place, there is the symbol of light and fire. Gregory
of Tours (4th century) recounts a practice that in some places
was preserved for a long time, of lighting the new fire for
the celebration of the Easter Vigil directly from the sun,
using a crystal.Light and fire, so to speak, were received
anew from heaven, so that all the lights and fires of the year
could be kindled from them. This is a symbol of what
we are celebrating in the Easter Vigil. Through his radical
love for us, in which the heart of God and the heart of man
touched, Jesus Christ truly took light from heaven and brought
it to the earth – the light of truth and the fire of
love that transform man’s being. He brought the
light, and now we know who God is and what God is like. Thus
we also know what our human situation is: what we are, and
for what purpose we exist. When we are baptized, the
fire of this light is brought down deep within ourselves. Thus,
in the early Church, Baptism was also called the Sacrament
of Illumination: God’s light enters into us; thus we
ourselves become children of light. We must not allow
this light of truth, that shows us the path, to be extinguished.
We must protect it from all the forces that seek to eliminate
it so as to cast us back into darkness regarding God and ourselves. Darkness,
at times, can seem comfortable. I can hide, and spend my life
asleep. Yet we are not called to darkness, but to light. In
our baptismal promises, we rekindle this light, so to speak,
year by year. Yes, I believe that the world and my life
are not the product of chance, but of eternal Reason and eternal
Love, they are created by Almighty God. Yes, I believe that
in Jesus Christ, in his incarnation, in his Cross and resurrection,
the face of God has been revealed; that in him, God
is present in our midst, he unites us and leads us towards
our goal, towards eternal Love. Yes, I believe that the
Holy Spirit gives us the word of truth and enlightens our hearts; I
believe that in the communion of the Church we all become one
Body with the Lord, and thus we encounter his resurrection
and eternal life. The Lord has granted us the light of truth.
This light is also fire, a powerful force coming from God,
a force that does not destroy, but seeks to transform our hearts,
so that we truly become men of God, and so that his peace can
become active in this world.
In the early Church there was a custom whereby the Bishop
or the priest, after the homily, would cry out to the faithful: “Conversi
ad Dominum” – turn now towards the Lord.
This meant in the first place that they would turn towards
the East, towards the rising sun, the sign of Christ returning,
whom we go to meet when we celebrate the Eucharist. Where
this was not possible, for some reason, they would at least
turn towards the image of Christ in the apse, or towards the
Cross, so as to orient themselves inwardly towards the Lord. Fundamentally,
this involved an interior event; conversion,
the turning of our soul towards Jesus Christ and thus towards
the living God, towards the true light. Linked with this,
then, was the other exclamation that still today, before the
Eucharistic Prayer, is addressed to the community of the faithful: “Sursum
corda” – “Lift up your hearts”,
high above all our misguided concerns, desires, anxieties and
thoughtlessness – “Lift up your hearts, your inner
selves!” In both exclamations we are summoned, as
it were, to a renewal of our Baptism: Conversi ad
Dominum – we must always turn away from false paths,
onto which we stray so often in our thoughts and actions. We
must turn ever anew towards him who is the Way, the Truth and
the Life. We must be converted ever anew, turning with our
whole life towards the Lord. And ever anew we must withdraw
our hearts from the force of gravity, which pulls them down,
and inwardly we must raise them high: in truth and love. At
this hour, let us thank the Lord, because through the power
of his word and of the holy Sacraments, he points us in the
right direction and draws our heart upwards. Let us pray
to him in these words: Yes, Lord, make us Easter people, men
and women of light, filled with the fire of your love. Amen.
© Copyright 2008 - Libreria
Editrice Vaticana |
