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By the Resurrection Jesus Conquers Despair and Affords All Hope

Homily

Easter Vigil, April 16

Do you wish to hear of the victory of our God over our enemies? Do you wish to hear of the triumph of life and the birth of hope? Do you long to love God deeper for the great thing he has worked for us on Easter? Then listen to the sounds you hear, and see the truths that make themselves manifest to your eyes.

There is great music from the choir, as there has been all week; but instead of hymns of sorrow and repentance, instead of psalms of affliction, now the choir sings Alleluia and songs of joy and power. There are special chants from the priest, there are hearts full of joy who sing along. There are long readings narrating the history of salvation in the world, for God has not abandoned us to our sins but sent us a savior. Many psalms are sung, and there are special blessings of the elements of fire and water, and of the paschal candle which is a symbol of the light of Christ. The diligent and loving labor of your fellow parishioners have made flowers erupt around the sanctuary, and provide worthy attention in the sanctuary by the altar servers. And here we all are this Saturday night praising God in this beautiful temple, a church provided to us by generations before, a church which we in our turn will preserve and maintain for generations to come.

What is all this about? What has provoked such stirrings? The Good News, that’s what. And here’s the good news: Jesus Christ is risen from the dead, and this is the reason we have hope! Let me repeat that.

Hope is a rare virtue to come by. And when it’s found, it’s often pathetically weak. Hope is often mistaken for, “Wouldn’t it be nice if.” But Catholic hope knows that salvation is in fact available, by the merits of Christ, for all who wish to attain it. How important it is, my brothers and sisters, to have hope! Yet we despair and we presume – both sins against hope – often without even being aware of it.

For just yesterday, Jesus Christ, the son of the ever Virgin Mary, died on the cross. Oh blessed tree, chosen among all, to bear the price of our salvation; oh balance of judgment, between the good thief and the bad, between the good heart and the evil heart, crucible of all who say they love God. Mary Magdalene and the others had seen that Jesus truly died, that his heart was pierced by a lance, and that blood and water flowed forth. They saw where Jesus was lain, and remain forever as witnesses to this truth. The night had come in, and it was the darkest night in all the history of the world. Jesus was busy descending into hell to preach to the just there the message of the Gospel; for no one had entered heaven save the angels before Jesus Christ won our redemption. He sought out Adam and Eve first of all, then Moses and Elijah and David, then all the prophets and all the just souls, all sorrowful. They suffered not the fires of hell, but yes the pain of separation.

Jesus proclaimed to them the truth: that the Son of God had taken flesh, and had become our Messiah, that he paid the price for our sins on the cross, and now he was conquering sin and death by rising from the dead. And he proclaimed to them all: “Peace be with you,” and they answered, “And also with you.”

Yet the mortals still alive in the flesh wept, and did not understand the message of the Gospel, for the Holy Spirit had not yet been given to them. Joseph of Arimathea was one of the Sanhedrin, a good and just man who did not consent to all that his wicked brothers did to Jesus. He gave him his tomb, and risked his fame and position by serving the Lord – what a lesson to us all!

And in the silence of that night, the darkest night in the history of the world, in the wee hours before the sun rose, the dead and tortured human body of the Son of God was no longer in the shroud Joseph of Arimathea had prepared for him. Angels rolled the stone back, and the Son of Man came forth, alive in his body once again. The Roman soldiers fell petrified with fear. Jesus was no longer dead, but living. The angels then waited until the morning when the Magdalene and the others came to embalm the Lord’s flesh, to ask them, “Why do you search for the living among the dead?”

All death comes from original sin. By rising, Jesus conquered original sin. From the moment he rose from the dead, all things are now different. Nothing is the same. And it is this living flesh which enters our own bodies when we consume the host at holy communion: the body, blood, soul and divinity of Jesus Christ in the host.

So why the despair? So why the discouragement? Why fears of what the enemies of the Catholic Church are doing to the Church? Why do we think our situation is hopeless? Why do we fail to repent, if God went so far to offer us forgiveness? Yes, the world today is full of despair, for the world does not believe in the Son of God.

Some despair, as I have said earlier, without knowing it. For there are many masks behind which despair hides itself, different forms of despair.

One form of despair is that which we most easily recognize: when one gives up hope that they can ever be saved. This sometimes happens to people who have perpetrated shameful sins of the flesh, or have addictions to drugs or alcohol, or to those who have never truly felt loved. The answer is simple: Jesus has risen from the dead, all have hope!

Another form of despair is more elusive and seductive: it is a vice called mediocrity. The mediochre person does not wish to excel in good or evil, but rather just to be average. He does not wish to change: and that’s why this is despair. Hope means conversion, that I will leave my slavery to sin behind, and change to experience the freedom of the sons of God. My dear brothers and sisters, it is this mediocrity which is exalted in our country and in our day. It praised with names such as “tolerance,” “indifference,” “being normal,” and “blending in.” God will vomit the mediocre person out of his mouth, because he is neither hot nor cold.

Another sin against despair is presumption. The presumptuous man continues to live in sin, be it mortal or venial, or perhaps in mediocrity, and he refuses to let it bother him. If his conscience bothers him, he says, “I don’t have to worry about converting, God will take care of it all.” Or, “God would never condemn anyone, let alone me,” and in this way the sinner viciously makes God the cause of his own fall, instead of himself, abdicating his own responsibility. If the presumptuous man’s conscience bothers him, he drowns himself with entertainment and television to keep himself looking on the outside and never on the inside. Or he argues and curses at others, because it’s always someone else’s fault and not his own. Or he extinguishes the pain of his conscience in drugs or alcohol or his career or in money or in pleasures or in … whatever keeps him from hearing his conscience.

The disciples perhaps felt despair. See the discouragement of the two disciples who left towards Emmaus? It was the first Easter, Jesus walked with them, and they did not know it. They narrated to their stranger, who was in fact Jesus, the events of the crucifixion, and to his face they said perhaps the saddest words ever pronounced: “We had hoped.” “We had hoped he would be the one to set Israel free.” We had hoped. But Jesus wasn’t what we had expected. He did not come down from the cross, and we have given up on Jesus.

But Jesus does not give up on man. As long as there’s life, there’s hope. And so Jesus turned to the disciples of Emmaus and loved them. He loved them by reproaching them. “Fools, and slow of heart to believe all that was written in the prophets about the Messiah.” And when they had come to understand the word, Jesus celebrated the Mass in their presence. They recognized it was him; their hearts burned within them; and Jesus himself saved these two despairing men.

Do you feel discouraged? Do you hide from confessing your sins to God and the Church? Do you feel defrauded because Jesus does not take away your crosses? Have you given up any hope of change, sliding into a numb mediocrity?

The best antidote to our daily temptations to despair is the sacraments, especially communion and confession. Confess often, and receive communion both worthily and frequently. Jesus is your savior. He did not make you to be a slave of sin, but to participate in his life, He who is the Son of God.

The next antidote against despair is the purification of our memory. We need to frequently remember the works of the Lord. This is why praying the rosary is so important, so that we can, in the company of the Virgin Mary, contemplate the works of our salvation every day. We need to pray, but not to “get in touch with my feelings,” or to “achieve peaceful feelings inside,” but rather to meditate on the works of the Lord. We also need to remember his laws, for in them we find light, truth and love. Remember when you go to work. Remember when you meet with friends. Remember when you play. Remember when you go to school. Remember when you pray.

And so we remember and celebrate tonight the resurrection of Jesus Christ. We remember by the long readings and the special homily all the deeds of the Lord in salvation history: Long readings, to remember, and to rejoice in hope. I constantly find people that are eager to abbreviate the Easter Vigil, in a hurry to get over with it, and in their hearts I know that they have little hope, or maybe even no hope, for they do not purify their memories by reading the revelation of the works of the Lord. Tonight we are in no hurry, for we remember and celebrate the resurrection of our Savior.

We remember and celebrate, at every Mass, the sacrifice of the Eucharist. And therefore the priest says, in the person of Christ who is present in the Church through the priest, “Do this in remembrance, yes, in remembrance of me.”

Full of joy that God has not abandoned us, that our creator has declared himself our Father through Baptism, that Jesus Christ has conquered all evil in the world by his glorious resurrection, let us now turn to the most important part of this solemn Vigil tonight, the sacrifice of the Holy Eucharist.

Jesus Christ is the Son of God, he is truly risen, Alleluia, Amen.