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Below is the full text of Pope Francis' homily at the Easter Vigil on the Holy Night of Easter 2022:
Many writers, many poets, have evoked the beauty of the nights, illuminated by the stars. The nights of war, on the other hand, are crossed by luminous trails of death. On this night, brothers and sisters, let us allow ourselves to be taken by the hand by the women of the Gospel, to discover with them the manifestation of the light of God that shines in the darkness of the world. Those women, while the night dissipated and the first light of dawn appeared without clamor, went to the sepulcher to anoint the body of Jesus. And there they lived a disconcerting experience: first they discovered that the tomb was empty; then they saw two figures with resplendent garments, who told them that Jesus had risen; and they quickly ran to announce the news to the other disciples (cf. Lk 24:1-10).Come, listen, announce . With these three actions we too enter into the Passover of the Lord.
The women see. The first proclamation of the Resurrection is not presented as a formula to be understood, but as a sign to be contemplated. In a cemetery, next to a tomb, where everything should be orderly and calm, the women saw “that the stone had been moved. When they entered, they did not find the body of the Lord Jesus” (vv. 2-3). Easter, therefore, begins by changing our schemes. He comes with the gift of surprising hope. But it is not easy to accept it. Sometimes - we must admit - this hope does not find room in our hearts. In us too, as in the women of the Gospel, questions and uncertainties prevail, and the first reaction to the unforeseen sign is fear, "not raising our eyes from the ground" (cf. vv. 4-5).
Very often, we look at life and reality without lifting our eyes from the ground; we only focus on today that passes, we feel disillusioned about the future and we lock ourselves in our needs, we settle in the prison of apathy, while we continue to complain and think that things will never change. And so we remain motionless before the tomb of resignation and fatalism, and we bury the joy of living. But, nevertheless, tonight the Lord wants to give us different eyes, lit by the hope of knowing that fear, pain and death will not have the last word on us. Thanks to the Easter of Jesus we can make the leap from nothing to life, "and death will no longer be able to defraud us of our existence" (K. RAHNER, Cosa significa la Pasqua, Brescia 2021, 28), that has been totally and forever embraced by the infinite love of God. It is true that she can frighten and paralyze us, but the Lord is risen! Let us look up, remove the veil of bitterness and sadness from our eyes, and open ourselves to the hope of God.
Second, women listen. After seeing the empty tomb, two men in shining garments said to them: “Why do you search among the dead for the one who is alive? He is not here: he has risen! » (verses 5-6). It does us good to hear and repeat these words: He is not here! Every time we think we know everything about God, that we can pigeonhole him into our schemes, let us repeat to ourselves: he is not here! When we look for Him only in a passing emotion or in a moment of need, only to push it aside and forget about Him in the concrete situations and decisions of each day, let us repeat to ourselves: He is not here! And when we think that we have imprisoned him in our words, formulas and customs, but we forget to look for him in the darkest corners of life, where there is someone who cries, fights, suffers and waits, let us repeat ourselves: he is not here!
Let us also listen to the question addressed to women: “Why do you seek among the dead the one who is alive?”. We cannot celebrate Easter if we continue to stay in death; if we remain prisoners of the past; if in life we do not have the courage to allow ourselves to be forgiven by God, to change, to put an end to the works of evil, to decide for Jesus and for his love; if we reduce faith to an amulet, making God a beautiful memory of past times, instead of discovering him as the living God who today wants to transform us and the world. A Christianity that seeks the Lord among the vestiges of the past and encloses him in the sepulcher of custom is a Christianity without Easter.. But the Lord is risen! Let us not stop at the tombs, but let us rediscover Him, the Living One! And let us not be afraid to look for him also in the faces of our brothers, in the history of the one who waits and dreams, in the pain of the one who cries and suffers: God is there!
Finally, women announce. What do they advertise? The joy of the Resurrection. Easter does not happen to intimately console those who mourn the death of Jesus, but to open hearts wide to the extraordinary announcement of God's victory over evil and death. For this reason, the light of the Resurrection does not want to hold women in the ecstasy of personal joy, it does not tolerate sedentary attitudes, but rather generates missionary disciples who "return from the grave" (cf. v. 9) and bring everyone the Gospel of the Risen One. That is why, after having seen and heard, the women ran to announce the joy of the Resurrection to the disciples. They knew that they could think they were crazy, so much so that the Gospel says that their words seemed "crazy" to them (v. 11), but they did not care about their reputation or defending their image;
How beautiful is a Church that runs in this way along the roads of the world! Without fear, without strategies or opportunism; only with the desire to bring everyone the joy of the Gospel. We are called to this, to experience the encounter with the Risen One and to share it with others; to roll away the stone from the tomb, where we have often shut up the Lord, to spread his joy in the world. Let us resurrect Jesus, the Living One, from the tombs where we have put him, let us free him from the formalities where we have often locked him up. Let's wake up from the dream of the quiet life in which we have sometimes accommodated it, so that it doesn't bother or bother us anymore. Let's take it to everyday life: with gestures of peace in this time marked by the horrors of war; with works of reconciliation in broken relationships and compassion towards those in need; with actions of justice in the midst of inequalities and truth in the midst of lies. And, above all, with works of love and fraternity.
Brothers and sisters, our hope is called Jesus. He entered the grave of our sins, reached the deepest place in which we had lost ourselves, traveled the tangles of our fears, carried the weight of our oppressions and, from the darkest depths of our death, woke us up to life and transformed our mourning into dance. Let's celebrate Easter with Christ! He is alive and also today passes, transforms and liberates. With Him, evil has no more power, failure cannot prevent us from starting over, death becomes a step towards the beginning of a new life. Because with Jesus, the Risen One, no night is infinite; and, even in the thickest darkness, the morning star shines.
In this darkness that you are living, parliamentary gentlemen, parliamentary ladies, the darkness of war and cruelty. We all pray for you and with you tonight. We pray for so many sufferings. We can only give them our company, our prayer, and encourage them and accompany them. Today is the greatest thing that can be celebrated. Christ was resurrected.
Credit - ACI Prensa
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