When we celebrate the Easter Vigil at TMD we are trying to do what the Church did from the start: to spend this night in vigil. It is not just the Church! We are doing something that goes back perhaps thirty five centuries. So like all vigilantes we are trying to stay awake - not shorten our prayers!
The Lord seems to create different themes each year. This year it was the Church in her pain and humiliation at this time and the sufferings of the Successor of St Peter.
During the mission of John Paul II to the Church, the figure of Peter in our Easter garden was that of the Pope. After he went home to our Father’s house, we could not immediately replace him with a sculpture of our Father Benedict XVI. But this year, we did so. The scenes of the passion and resurrection took place in front of St Peter’s and Christ rose from his grave in the catacombs of the Basilica.
Of the nine readings of the Vigil, the Prophet Baruch seemed to capture our minds and we turned it into a conversation. You will have to imagine the Prophet standing in the midst of the choir with his interpreter beside him....
A reading from the prophet Baruch.
Hear, O Israel, the commandments of life:
Are you listening to what God is saying to you?
How is it, Israel,
that you are in the land of your foes,
grown old in a foreign land,
Have you got enough time - to spend it clinging to the things of this world?
grown old in a foreign land,
defiled with the dead,
accounted with those destined for the netherworld?
Are you seeking death or life?
You have forsaken the fountain of wisdom!
Are you really listening to what God is saying to you?
Had you walked in the way of God,
you would have dwelt in enduring peace.
Is there a deep desire to be obedient to the Lord in the centre of your heart?
Learn where prudence is,
where strength, where understanding;
Are you learning the ways of God or is self getting in the way?
that you may know also
where are length of days, and life,
Are you using God’s time well?
that you may know also
where light of the eyes, and peace.
Do you know how much God loves you?
Who has found the place of wisdom,
who has entered into her treasuries?
Have you entered into the pearl of great price?
The One who knows all things knows her;
he has probed her by his knowledge
The One who established the earth for all time,
and filled it with four-footed beasts;
Do you marvel daily at the Lord of creation and all he has made for us?
he who dismisses the light, and it departs,
calls it, and it obeys him trembling;
Are you a light that he can use to illumine the darkness?
before whom the stars at their posts
shine and rejoice;
when he calls them, they answer, “Here we are!”
When God calls do you say immediately ‘Here I am’?
when he calls them, they answer, “Here we are!”
shining with joy for their Maker.
Are you a person filled with the joy of the Lord?
Such is our God;
no other is to be compared to him:
When did you last shout for sheer praise for the knowledge of God’s existence!?
He has traced out the whole way of understanding,
and has given her to Jacob, his servant,
to Israel, his beloved son.
Has God confided in you his plans for peace and justice?
Since then she has appeared on earth,
and moved among people.
Are you a witness to God’s plan of salvation?
She is the book of the precepts of God,
the law that endures forever;
Are you living the law of love?
all who cling to her will live,
but those will die who forsake her.
Are you prepared to give life to others?
Turn, O Jacob, and receive her:
walk by her light toward splendor.
When you learn the ways of God do you put them into practice?
Give not your glory to another,
your privileges to an alien race.
Do you know just how privileged you are?
Blessed are we, O Israel;
for what pleases God is known to us!
God is here present among us. In the radiance of the Lord make your way to light, to wisdom, to truth. As God pleases, as God wills!!
This is the Word of the Lord.
