20200412
CHRIST
THE LIGHT ILLUMINATES THE FOUR NIGHTS
11-12 April, 2020, Easter
Vigil/Easter Sunday
CHRIST THE LIGHT
ILLUMINATES THE FOUR NIGHTS
SCRIPTURE READINGS: [GN 1:1–2:2; GN 22:1-18; EX 14:15–15; ISA 54:5-14; ISA 55:1-11; BAR 3:9-15.32–4:4; EZ 36:16-28; ROM 6:3-11; MATT 28:1-10 ]
The gospel for Easter
Vigil, and in fact the entire Easter Week, makes reference to the Empty
Tomb. We
read of the amazement of the apostles and disciples of Jesus when they found,
or heard the story of the empty Tomb. Mary Magdalene, on discovering that
the tomb was empty, was distraught because she thought that someone had stolen
the body of Jesus. “Peter, however, went running to the tomb. He bent
down and saw the binding cloths but nothing else; he then went back home,
amazed at what had happened.” Why was the Tomb empty? Who rolled
the stone away? These are questions that they could not readily find an
answer.
In many ways too, we are
also in the Empty Tomb.
We cannot make sense of what is happening in the world today as a consequence
of Covid-19. Our lives appear to be empty. There is no fun, no
celebration, no excitement and no friends around us. The offices are
empty. The streets are empty. The malls are empty. The bars
and disco-clubs are empty. The parlours in the red light district are
seeing red in their bank accounts! The hotels are empty. The planes
are empty. The churches are not only empty but even our religious
services are emptied of the rich liturgical symbols and celebrations. For
some of us, our pockets are also empty, and we need the government to top them
up!
So what do we do?
Are we going to be like Mary Magdalene, crying and lamenting how life could be
like this? She
was weeping and complaining that someone had taken the body of her Lord
away. Or are we going to be like the disciples at Emmaus, unsettled and
disturbed by what they saw and heard? Some of us who are like them,
despondent, angry, resentful and even losing faith in God’s mercy and love, may
ask: “Why does God allow such a pandemic to happen, causing the entire world to
suffer?” Our economies are wrecked, we have lost our jobs, and so many people
have been infected and tens of thousands killed. Where is God in all
this? We are fed up, locked in at home and unable to go out as we
like. We are lonely, because we are forced to face people we can’t get
along with. We want to be with our friends and those we love. We
want our Masses back, and gather to worship, pray and work with our community.
Today, the Church
invites us to rejoice.
“Exult, let them exult, the hosts of heaven, exult, let Angel ministers of God
exult, let the trumpet of salvation sound aloud our mighty King’s triumph! Be
glad, let earth be glad, as glory floods her, ablaze with light from her
eternal King, let all corners of the earth be glad, knowing an end to gloom and
darkness.” But what is there to rejoice when we are stuck in our homes?
What is there to rejoice when we are under bondage in our homes? What is
there to rejoice when there is no life in us, when we are like dead men and
women?
We have reasons to exult
because Christ is our Light in darkness, especially during this difficult
period of Covid-19 pandemic. That is why we light the Easter Candle for all to see
and for Him to shine through the darkness of the night. He
shines in our lives and makes darkness as clear as the day. He is
that morning star that never sets. Indeed, as the first reading from the
book of Genesis declares, “Let there be light!” God is Light, Truth and
Life. The resurrection of Jesus lights up the tomb we live in. He
is the true light that will lead us into fullness of life. Not even the
tomb can imprison us, just as it could not confine our Lord. As the
resurrected Lord, He walked through doors, consoles us that He is alive and
with us, as He told Mary Magdalene. He opened hardened and closed hearts
like Thomas, giving hope to downhearted people like the disciples at Emmaus,
peace and joy to the disciples who hiding behind closed doors in fear when He
appeared to them, transforming chaos into cosmos.
How is this happening
today? Like
in the days of old, as in the Exsultet that we sang, there are four nights that
the Light of Christ brings to humanity. Did you take note that four
times, in the Exsultet, we prayed, “This is the night …”
The first night is
deliverance from slavery. “This
is the night when once you led our forebears, Israel’s children, from slavery
in Egypt and made them pass dry-shod through the Red Sea.” God saved the
Israelites from their misery by freeing them from the bondage of the Egyptians
as we read in the book of Exodus. Christ as the New Moses frees us today
as well, from all bondages, physical and spiritual, that enslave us. Many
of us feel stifled and imprisoned in our homes because we cannot go out.
Just consider how the cloistered religious live in their monasteries without
going out! The real bondage is never a physical bondage. It is our
spiritual bondage because we want things our way. We want to do what we
like. Most of us are in bondage to the seven capital sins of pride, envy,
anger, sloth, gluttony, lust and greed. The world wants to be free, not
for true happiness but to sin, and sin more! Real slavery is when we
cannot control our desires and when we are addicted to sex, gambling, drinking,
cheating, pornography, anger and laziness. Those who live in sin, live in
guilt or are numb to sin but are rotting in their hearts.
The second night that
God wants to bring light to is the darkness of sin. “This is the night that with a pillar of
fire banished the darkness of sin.” Darkness is always associated with
sin. When Judas took the bread from Jesus and went out to betray Him, St
John wrote, “It was dark!” All sins are committed in the dark. No
one commits sin openly. We hide our sins from others because we
know they are wrong and shameful. This is why there are many people in
the world seeking to normalize sin and evil so that they no longer have to sin
in the dark. But Jesus tells us not to be fooled by the world’s
propaganda of false freedom and fake love. The freedom the world is
offering is really another form of addiction and slavery to self. The
love the world is offering is nothing but lust and sensual pleasures, a
perverted love of self, not of the other person. Christ the Light comes
to enlighten us on the deceitfulness of sin.
The third night is the
night of grace, of new life in Christ. “This is the night that even now,
throughout the world, sets Christian believers apart from worldly vices and
from the gloom of sin, leading them to grace and joining them to his holy
ones.” We can be set free from the vices and gloom of sin
only through the grace of the Holy Spirit given to us at our baptism. St
Paul said, “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. For if we have grown into union with him through
a death like his, we shall also be united with him in the resurrection. We know
that our old self was crucified with him, so that our sinful body might be done
away with, that we might no longer be in slavery to sin.” Truly, if we
have died with Christ to our selfishness and self-centeredness, the lack of
forgiveness and charity in our hearts, we too will enjoy the grace of a true
freedom for love and for life.
Finally, the fourth
night is the most glorious night of resurrection. “This is the night, when Christ
broke the prison-bars of death and rose victorious from the underworld.”
Christ has indeed shown us that death is not the last word, neither hatred but
life and love. Not even the underworld can hold our Lord in the grave,
so, too, not even this Pandemic can triumph over us by making us lose faith in
Him or to give up our faith, or to give up hope even though we have been so
deprived of what we are used to having and doing. But this Covid-19 has
shown how resilient we can be when we have faith in Jesus. He shows us
new ways to evangelize, to remain in contact with our brothers and sisters in
the faith, praying together using the means of modern technology, having
on-line Masses, preaching and sharing the Word of God, having our CatholicSG
Radio to broadcast hymns, talks and interviews. Regardless of the
constraints, we are reaching out to more people than those who come for
Mass! We have been forced to find creative and new ways to proclaim
Jesus. We too can use the time at home to bond with our family, praying
and worshipping together, having family meals and recreating
together. When we live like this, we have a foretaste of the
resurrected life!
So my dear brothers and
sisters, we can indeed rejoice and sing Alleluia! He is alive. He
is not dead. He is with
us. He is present in our trials and temptations. He has risen in
our hearts if you allow Him. So like the Church that says, “O truly
necessary sin of Adam, destroyed completely by the Death of Christ! O
happy fault that earned so great, so glorious a Redeemer!” we too must say “O
necessary Covid-19, if not for this virus, our lives would not have been
changed, our faith would not have been challenged, our values would not have
found reorientation, our family would not have been closer. Now we
recognize our finiteness, the importance of solidarity in love and charity
because we are all one humanity, and most of all, that even in death, there is
life forever.” So we must sing Alleluia! even at this time.
Alleluia!
Written
by The Most Rev William Goh, Roman Catholic Archbishop of Singapore © All
Rights Reserved
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