Last week, Rhonda Bowden, our liturgist at St Jude, posted photos of Lent and Holy Week from last year, when all of our liturgies were streamed over the internet and none of you, the parishioners were able to come to those liturgies in person. We had never streamed our liturgies before. Marcos Garcia, a high school student, brought his smart phone, and we started off in this brand new world for us. It did seem like a brand new world and a brand new reality, didn’t it? Never before in our lifetimes have we experienced a Lent and a Holy Week like we did last year. I think we would all agree with that statement. While in-person liturgies and church actives were temporarily suspended in the midst of the extraordinary measures taken amid a global health pandemic, it did not mean that the commemoration and practice of our faith stopped altogether. It did not cancel the holy season of Lent and our most hallowed season of Easter.
This year, too, we are still dealing with the pandemic. I was so excited that we were going to be able to have Lent and Holy Week in person this year. Then, the severe ice storm hit and I was alone in the church streaming the Masses and stations of the cross. I did not even have another person to record the Mass on my IPAD. However, we are called to look at the blessings of our faith in the midst of our sufferings, our trials, and our tribulations. In the midst of coping with the pandemic, perhaps the Easter promises of new life in Christ takes on new meaning. Perhaps what we have gone through these past twelve months provides an opportunity for us to look at life in its greater context in a new way, to see the presence of God and the presence of faith in the world through a different lens. Perhaps we took too much for granted. Perhaps we wanted things that we truly did not need. Perhaps we took our relationship with God, our relationship with the Church, and our relationship with others for granted. As we celebrate the Easter Vigil tonight, we can recognize how of our celebration of Holy Week and the Easter season provides us a way to ponder our current reality with the trails and sufferings that Christ endured, from the last supper with his disciples, to his journey to the cross and his death, and then to his resurrection. Pope Benedict XVI stated: “There is no experience of God unless one goes out from the business of everyday living.” Sometimes, our busy complicated reality can keep us from truly looking at our faith and seeing God’s presence. Yet, we also realize that without our experience of Lent, without looking at the sufferings and trials that we endure, there would be no Easter celebration for us. It would not truly be Easter and it would not have the same meaning.
Tonight, in our Easter Vigil Mass, we profess that Jesus no longer just belongs to the past, but he truly lives in the present and he is projected toward the future. Our faith tells us that the resurrection of the risen Christ is an everlasting reality in our lives. Just as the women who found the empty tomb received a glimpse of the reality of the resurrection, just as the disciples started to learn what Christ’s resurrection meant to them, we are also called to contemplate this reality Christ brings into our lives: his victory over sin and death that brings us new life.
The baptismal promises we renew as a community of faith in our Masses this Easter weekend call us to embrace the values of our faith with courage and zeal and to renounce those things that keep us from God. From the death and resurrection of Jesus and from waters of baptism flows a vision that is able change and challenge the way we live and engage with the world. What we experience tonight at our Easter Vigil mass should inspire us to look at our old ways and to live in a new way centered around Christ. We are called to a reinvigorated faith this Easter season, to be alive in the spirit of Christ: in the Christ who shared our life here on earth, who spoke up for the oppressed, who healed the sick, who fed the hungry, and who died to bring us salvation. This is the spirit of Christ that we are called to share with our world.
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