Church of Jesus Christ of the Universe

By Mauro

30 April 2024

Easter Vigil in the Holy Night (Year B)

Gen 1,1-2,2; Gen 22,1-18; Ex 14,15-15,1; Isa 54,5-14; Isa 55,1-11;

Bar 3,9-15+3,32-4,4; Ezek 36,16-28; Rm 6,3-11; Mk 16,1-8

Translated audio

In this Triduum, we said that we wanted to remain, as Church, united with Jesus and the Most Blessed Mother in all their passages.

This Easter Triduum is for us – for all Christians, but for us in particular – the Triduum that we repeat every Thursday, Friday and Saturday of the week, and we will see the reason later.

Night of Vigil: as Church, we keep vigil with Mary Most Holy. Mary was waiting. She was the only one who believed in the resurrection. We know that Mary Magdalene, Lazarus and John the Evangelist partly believed in it, but she was the only one who believed without doubting. Many ran away, unable to believe what had happened to Jesus. We also hear it in the Gospel[1] today that they saw an angel, who spoke to them, “Jesus is not here. Go and tell it to the others,” but they did not do it because they were afraid.

What should we do as His Church, who are keeping vigil with Mary? We must contemplate God’s action in these times, what God has done with us and around us and in our personal lives; we must contemplate what He is doing, looking at our situation and that of the world in the light of faith. We must have Mary’s faith in the resurrection. We must believe in the resurrection and in God’s action in these times because He has risen and because He is present in His second coming. Then, we can wait, rejoice and exult in every resurrection.

Resurrection is the new life, being new human beings, having a renewed mind. “The old man,” says Saint Paul, “is crucified with Christ. He is no longer here.” Resurrection means being liberated. A resurrected person is free and no longer enchained. Jesus had been resurrected, nothing could stop Him anymore. To be risen means having no fears anymore. With the resurrection, the source of all fears has been overcome: death. What should we be afraid of? If we are united with Christ, if we love Christ, if we have followed Him in His earthly life, in His death, on the Cross, and rise again with Him? What can scare us?

With the vigils that we repeat every week, we admit that we need a lot of faith, we need to take many steps to believe, to be able to say, “I believe.” We have to say it many times because we have not reached fullness. Probably we too, like the women in the Gospel, would run away and keep quiet if the Lord now appeared and told us, “Go and tell”.

These three days – Thursday, Friday and Saturday – show the path for each of us to overcome our fears, and our deaths, one at a time, to finally overcome Death. The Lord Jesus showed us the way to face LIFE, as He lived it. In each passage, we enter into prayer, we understand the passage and we realise that we do not want to take it, and that is indeed the problem. We, too, come to our Gethsemane to say, “If possible, remove this cup. But not my will but yours shall be done.”[2] Therefore, we receive all grace to go through DEATH. However, that does not take away the fatigue, the pain, and the trial because the old man does not want to die; yet, he must die.

Then, this moment, today, has arrived: the time of waiting; the grace that leads us to the resurrection begins to act. We cannot do all of this without loving Jesus. We cannot take any of these steps without believing that Jesus has overcome the world and that Jesus has risen. However, believing it is not enough; we must enter into it and live it with Him.

In short: We must offer ourselves with Him, and offer our lives to Him; He has opened the path and given us all the things we know. However, we must add a further step: being Christian is not a religion; being Christian is a way of life. If we decide to be Christians, we can no longer be as before. If we decide to be Christians, to be baptised, we cannot live according to the world because, although we are in the world, we are not of the world.[3]

There is something great for which the Lord awaits us and He has prepared for His people, which is to live as children of God. I cannot tell you how, but I know that the Gospel, the Readings, everything we have been told and revealed contains everything. “Everything is finished”[4], the Lord had to accomplish His work, and now it is time for us to do our part.

Being Christian truly means having nothing to do with the world, which does not mean not living; it means living as children of God, having the desire, courage and joy to discover TOGETHER what it means to live as children of God. Believe me, this is something new for this world. That is the new people; that is the New Creation that begins from the Earth. It is something that even the Saints could not experience because they were often alone. They did not have people around them; they prepared the path for us. However, now, this path must be taken by a people, who shows humanity what it means to be children of God. I think that this is the meaning of this vigil for us.

This vigil, I desire to see and testify that Jesus is present; see and testify that the Church, the new Jerusalem, is coming down from Heaven and that we can feel it; we can feel its vibrations and its power; we may recognise it even through the evil that comes out because it can no longer hide.

I want to live through this time of waiting and I invite you, too, to live through it contemplating the Blessed Virgin Mary, who has entered the Trinity, prays for us and generates each of us. Let us contemplate our Mother in Heaven. Through this contemplation, we can overcome all fear and every limit, as it goes beyond every trial.

I wish to contemplate and thank Mary and God for all the benefits this humanity has received. I want to give thanks to God for each of you. In peace, it remains for us to wait for the new times to unfold; new times that do not depend on humanity, as it is God who wants to realise them together with us, His children. Therefore, it is a time of waiting in which we say, “Come, Lord Jesus, accomplish your work.” Yet, we have to say it together. If only I say it, it may happen like for many Saints, who had to wait for the afterlife to experience the fullness, while it could have begun here.

It is a challenge that God throws at us. However, if you look, all history has been a challenge given by God to humanity. God gave everything: grace upon grace, gift upon gift, and He waited for each of us to say, “Here I am!”

I think that waiting for the resurrection of Christ is the right thing at the right time for us to do. The Blessed Virgin Mary struggled because She was alone, and She had to support Peter, the Apostles, and the Church because they were the Church. Now, however, Mary has a people, Her people, that she has generated. This waiting will truly become the glory of God and ours too.

Finally, I want to place again the whole Church into Mary’s Heart so that we may unite with Her in the hours of waiting and with Her prayer. Into Mary’s Heart, I wish to place all those who preceded us and are here among us, all those who entered the New Creation before us. I wish to place into Her Heart the last, the least, the simple, all martyrs of this humanity as well as the disintegrating energy of this humanity. O Mother, may Your Heart, Your prayer awaken all those who said “Yes” at the moment of conception, those who desire to be children of God. In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.

[1] See Mk 16, 1-8

[2] See Lk 22, 42

[3] See Jn 15, 19; Jn 17, 16

[4] See Jn 19, 30