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The Easter Vigil
"This is the
         night when
         Jesus Christ
             broke the chains of death
                and rose triumphant from the
grave!"
-Exsultet
Alleluia!
"It is the Passover of the Lord."
                                       -Exodus
The Exsultet
Scriptures for the Easter Vigil
The Easter Vigil is the central liturgy of the Church's life.  During this Vigil, the Church commemorates the history of Salvation from the beginning of Creation to the saving act of Christ's triumph over sin and death in the Resurrection to the continuing experience of the pleanteous redemption that Jesus offers to all people.  The Vigil consists of a service of Light, during which the Exsultet prayer is sung,  Liturgy of the Word, Celebration of the Sacraments of Initiation and the Liturgy of the Eucharist.  The Vigil begins at sunset of Holy Saturday.  It is a time of joy and anticipation.  The Church, with Christ leading the way, renews its passage from death to life through the Word, the Waters of Baptism and the Eucharist.
What a journey we are on!  The Passover journey has been a long road which we began on Ash Wednesday - it seems to long ago.  But our journey really did not start there.  It started in the moment when we were immersed into the waters of Baptism.  Life began for us when we were initiated into the eternal act of Christ Jesus - his life, his death and his transforming call to conversion, that is, his Resurrection.

And that is what we gather in the midst of darkness to celebrate!  We celebrate our journey with the Lord Jesus.  Our journey is fused to his forever because of Jesus' unconditional, extraordinary love for us.  This is what Divine Love is about though.  It's about transformation, it's about humility, and it's about communion.  We are forever united with Jesus.  There really is no separating from him now.  Jesus does not pull back his love.  His resurrection is an expansion of heaven in our lives.  Who of us can be outside of the life-giving power that Jesus has poured upon all of creation in his rising from the dead?!  No sin, no fault, no flaw can keep Jesus from loving us!  He died and rose while and because we were sinners!  He did not create us to spend eternity in hell.  We needed him to save us and he responded to our need like a Shepherd tending his sheep, like a father providing for his young children, like a God loving his people.

But the journey with Jesus has not been easy.  We have each had our struggles.  We have each fallen down on this walk with Jesus.  And sometimes it has felt like the Lord has been calling us to run on this journey of love when all we felt we could do was crawl.  But Christ Jesus has walked the same journey we are walking now - the journey toward the Father - and he knows what can be accomplished through human nature.  He chose to work through human nature in though he was in the form of God and he can relate to what we feel and experience as we try daily to live in his Paschal Mystery.  Because of the Spirit that Jesus gives us through his death and resurrection, we too, like Christ, can run and now grow weary.  We can approach the throne of the Father with confidence knowing that we will not be turned away!  In fact, the Father, in the Son and through the Spirit, has risen from the stone throne of the tomb - is risen in communion with the Son and the Spirit - and running toward us now celebrating our return to union with him.  Let us find the strength in Christ to meet the Father again and again!

This journey is far from being over.   Tonight we do not look to the end of the journey, but rather, the beginning!  AMEN!  ALLELUIA!  CHRIST IS RISEN!

In the Risen One,
Shaun Lowery
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