Great and Solumn Vigil of Easter
Rejoice, heavenly powers! Sing, choirs of angels! Exult, all creation around God's throne! Jesus Christ, our King is risen! Sound the trumpet of salvation!Rejoice, O earth, in shining splendor, radiant in the brightness of your King! Christ has conquered! Glory fills you! Darkness vanishes forever!
Rejoice, O Mother Church! Exult in glory! The risen Savior shines upon you! Let this place resound with joy, echoing the mighty song of all God's people!
The Lord be with you.
And also with you.
Lift up your hearts.
We lift them up to the Lord.
Let us give thanks to the Lord our God.
It is right to give him thanks and praise.
It is truly right that with full hearts and minds and voices we should praise the unseen God, the all-powerful Father, and his only Son, our Lord Jesus Christ.
For Christ has ransomed us with his blood, and paid for us the price of Adam's sin to our eternal Father!
This is our passover feast, when Christ, the true Lamb, is slain, whose blood consecrates the homes of all believers.
This is the night when first you saved our fathers: you free the people of Israel from their slavery and led them dry-shod through the sea.
This is the night when Christians everywhere, washed clean of sin and freed from all defilement, are restored to grace and grow together in holiness.
This is the night when Jesus Christ broke the chains of death and rose triumphant from the grave.
What good would life have been to us, had Christ not come as our Redeemer?
Father, how wonderful your care for us! How boundless your merciful love! To ransom a slave you gave away your Son.
O happy fault, O necessary sin of Adam, which gained for us so great a Redeemer!
Most blessed of all nights, chosen by God to see Christ rising from the dead!
Of this night scripture says: "The night will be as clear as day; it will become my light, my joy."
The power of this holy night dispels all evil, washes guilt away, restores lost innocence, brings mourners joy; it casts out hatred, brings us peace, and humbles earthly pride.
Night truly blessed when heaven is wedded to earth and we are reconciled with God!
Therefore, heavenly Father, in the joy of this night, receive our evening sacrifice of praise, your Church's solemn offering.
Accept this Easter candle, a flame divided but undimmed, a pillar of fire that glows to the honor of God. Let it mingle with the lights of heaven and continue bravely burning to dispel the darkness of this night!
May the morning Star which never sets find this flame still burning: Christ, that Morning Star, who came back from the dead, and shed his peaceful light on us all, your Son who lives and reigns for ever and ever. Amen.
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Matthew 28:1-10
And in the end of the Sabbath, when it began to dawn towards the first day of the week, came Mary Magdalen and the other Mary, to see the sepulchre. And behold there was a great earthquake. For an angel of the Lord descended from heaven and coming rolled back the stone and sat upon it. And his countenance was as lightning and his raiment as snow. And for fear of him, the guards were struck with terror and became as dead men. And the angel answering, said to the women: Fear not you: for I know that you seek Jesus who was crucified. He is not here. For he is risen, as he said. Come, and see the place where the Lord was laid. And going quickly, tell ye his disciples that he is risen. And behold he will go before you into Galilee. There you shall see him. Lo, I have foretold it to you. And they went out quickly from the sepulchre with fear and great joy, running to tell his disciples. And behold, Jesus met them, saying: All hail. But they came up and took hold of his feet and adored him. Then Jesus said to them: Fear not. Go, tell my brethren that they go into Galilee. There they shall see me.
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Tonight, the Church enters into the final phase of the Paschal mystery as she celebrates the Rising of the Lord from the Dead. New catechumens will be baptized tonight also, some others, having already committed their lives to Jesus Christ in part, will enter into the Fullness of Faith and Truth as they are received into full communion with the Holy Catholic Church and receive the Sacrament of Conformation and their first Holy Communion.
Whether those entering the Church tonight are new Christians being baptized, or their journey of faith has finally brought them home, it is appropriate that they should receive the Sacraments of Initiation at the Feast of the Resurrection. Through Christ's Resurrection, the Church and the world were initiated into the reality of victory over death. When a person is baptized and/or received into the Church, their baptism and reception of the Lord's Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity into their very being makes victory over death through Christ a reality. They are "rising from the dead" in a very real sense, entering into the Blessed Hope of the Great Resurrection on the Last Day.
A Protestant that I know once opined that it made no sense that the Church would celebrate something so profound as the Easter Vigil on the night before Easter Sunday because "Christ rose on Sunday." This is the accepted notion among most people, Protestant or Catholic, and yet a careful study of how the Hebrews reckoned time shows us that yet again, the Church got it right. A new day is reckoned in Scripture as beginning on sundown of the previous evening. This is the reason why Our Lord had to be laid to rest in a hurry on Friday, because sundown (and hence, the Sabbath) was near at hand. Thus, knowing that this was the way that people in biblical times calculated the passing of the days, the "first day of the week" actually began at the setting of the sun on Saturday night. That means that by the time the two Marys saw the empty tomb early on Sunday morning, and thereafter saw the Lord, he very well could have been risen from the dead for several hours! We don't know at exactly what time Our Lord rose, but we do know that Saturday night is actually the earliest he could have awakened.
posted by Deacon David Oatney @ 3:04 PM
1 Comments:
Nice blog. Thank you.
I invite you to visit my blog and to study baptism and the Holy Spirit with me.
http://baptism-holyspirit.blogspot.com/
Terry Finley
happy.finley@gmail.com
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