Fr. Roger J. Landry
Villa Guadalupe of the Sisters of Life, Stamford, CT
Easter Vigil 2016
March 26, 2016
Gen 1:1-2:2, Ps 104, Gen 22:1-18, Ps 16, Ex 14:15-15:1-6.17-18, Is 54:5-14, Ps 30, Is 55:1-11, Is 12:2-6, Bar 3:9-15. 32, Ps 19, Ez 36:16-28, Ps 42, Rom 6:3-11, Ps 118, Mt 28:1-10
To listen to an audio recording of tonight’s homily, please click below:
The following text guided tonight’s homily:
- Tonight’s celebration of what the Roman Missal calls the “greatest and most noble of all solemnities” is even greater and more ennobled this year by the fact that it’s taking place in the midst of the extraordinary Jubilee of Mercy, which is meant to influence everything the Church does during this ecclesiastical holy year and in a particular way our major feasts. And when we look at this feast through the lens of mercy, we get right to its absolute essence: that’s what the liturgy of light, the 17-course liturgy of the word, the liturgy of the water and the renewal of our baptismal promises, and the liturgy of the Eucharist all mutually indicate. St. John Paul II said it best in his encyclical on divine mercy when he declared, “In his Resurrection, Christ has revealed the God of merciful love. … The Son of God … at the end of His messianic mission — and, in a certain sense, even beyond the end — reveals Himself as the inexhaustible source of mercy, of the same love that, in a subsequent perspective of the history of salvation in the Church, is to be everlastingly confirmed as more powerful than sin. The paschal Christ is the definitive incarnation of mercy, its living sign in salvation history and in eschatology.” (DM 8). No wonder why, when Jesus asked St. Faustina to have an image made of him in his mercy, we see him Risen from the dead, in dazzling white garments of the resurrection, with his pierced yet gloriously transfigured right hand blessing us as his pierced and transfigured left points to the blood and water gushing forth from his side as an everlasting font of mercy.
- We begin Mass by exulting in this mercy. With words that at first glance might seem to border even on blasphemy, the deacon or priest-deacon, in the Easter Proclamation that could be called in a sense “The Gospel of Easter” or simply the Easter Kerygma, chants, “O happy Fault, that earned so great, so glorious a Redeemer!” The theology behind calling any sin — Adam’s or ours — blessed is described in the prayer after the first Old Testament reading about creation, when, paraphrasing the Collect on Christmas Day and the prayer during the Offertory when a drop of water is added to wine when we pray, “O God, who wonderfully created human nature and still more wonderfully redeemed it.” Human nature, created wonderfully by God, is left in an even more marvelous state because of Christ’s work of redemption.
- The phrase, “O Felix Culpa,” “O Happy Fault,” is normally attributed to St. Augustine, but it’s a really a paraphrase of what St. Augustine said. The converted saintly bishop of Hippo had actually said, “For God judged it better to bring good out of evil than not to permit any evil to exist.” And it’s likely that he was influenced not only by his experience of the multitude of happy sins of his youth that eventually brought him such a great Redeemer and led him to write about it in his famous “Confession,” but by the preaching of the saintly bishop who had helped bring him to conversion in Milan. St. Ambrose would often from different angles stress this theme, something that may have helped St. Augustine realize that God wanted to transform the manure of his past into fertilizer for new growth. “The Lord knew that Adam would fall and then be redeemed by Christ,” St. Ambrose declared. “Happy ruin, which has such a beautiful reparation!” (Commentary on Psalm 39, 20). Elsewhere he said, “We who have sinned more have gained more, because your grace [of mercy, Lord] makes us more blessed than our absence of fault does” (Commentary on Ps 37, 47). And in one of the Prefaces of the Ambrosian Liturgical rite, the priest sings to God, “You bent down over our wounds and healed us, giving us a medicine stronger than our afflictions, a mercy greater than our fault. In this way even sin, by virtue of your invincible love, served to elevate us to the divine life” (Sunday XVI per annum). So strong is this line of thought penetrating the Exultet, that later we sing, “Our birth would have been no gain had we not been redeemed.” Were it not for Christ’s redemption, for us, as for Judas who betrayed Christ, it would have been better for us never to have been born.
- We can see Scriptural foundations for this truly shocking Easter affirmation. St. Paul told us in his letter to the Romans, “All things,” and here can we think of our sins, faults and failings, “work together for the God for those who love God, for those who are called according to his purpose.” Jesus himself would say more than once, in the great chapter 15 of St. Luke’s Gospel, about the Lost Sheep, Lost Coin and Lost Son: “Heaven rejoices more for one repentant sinner than for 99 who never needed to repent!” And we see that truth played out in Simon the Pharisee’s house when Jesus defends the sinful woman who washed his feet with her tears and dried them with her hair. Against Simon’s objections Jesus affirmed that the one who has been forgiven little, loves little, but the one who has been forgiven much loves much.” We grow to love Jesus in correspondence to how much we’ve experienced his mercy, and the more we receive his mercy, paradoxically the bigger the celestial celebration.
- This is a beautiful, life-changing truth we have to confront on this “sacred night on which our Lord Jesus Christ passed over from death to life” to help us share in his triumph, as we prayed at the beginning of this liturgy. This is a reality that should make “this holy building shake with joy.” But it can’t remain just a theological truth. Pope Francis has pointed this out in what I believe is his most powerful pre-papal passage about mercy, which I read at 3 in the morning the night he was elected and which stopped me in my tracks. I ask the patience of the Sisters from Visitation, who hear this passage so often they probably have it memorized and maybe Sr. Hope has even somehow incorporated it into next year’s Epiphany skit. But it comes from a 2010 book-length interview called El Jesuita, translated into English as Conversations with Jorge Bergoglio: Pope Francis, His Life in His Own Words. In it he said that an authentically Christian discipleship begins our recognition that we’re sinners in need of salvation and the concomitant experience that that Savior looks on us with merciful love. “For me, feeling oneself a sinner,” the future Pope said, “is one of the most beautiful things that can happen, if it leads to its ultimate consequences.” At the Easter Vigil, he says, we sing “O Felix culpa,” exulting in the “happy sin” that brought us to experience the love of the Redeemer, and commented: “When a person becomes conscious that he is a sinner and is saved by Jesus, he proclaims this truth to himself and discovers the pearl of great price, the treasure buried in the field. He discovers the greatest thing in life: that there is someone who loves him profoundly, who gave his life for him.” Many Catholics, he added, have sadly not had this fundamental Christian experience. “There are people who believe the right things, who have received catechesis and accepted the Christian faith in some way, but who do not have the experience of having been saved,” he lamented. He then gave a powerful metaphor of what the true experience of God’s mercy is like. “It’s one thing when people tell us a story about someone’s risking his life to save a boy drowning in the river. It’s something else when I’m the one drowning and someone gives his life to save me.” That’s what Christ did for us to save us from the eternal watery grave of the deluge of sin. That’s what we should celebrate every day of our life, just like someone whose life has been saved by a hero would never be able to forget it, not to mention thank him enough, and someone who had been saved by another who gave his life in the rescue, would never be able to stop hallowing his memory. Unfortunately, Cardinal Bergoglio said, “There are people to whom you tell the story who don’t see it, who don’t want to see, who don’t want to know what happened to that boy, or who always have escape hatches from the situation of drowning and who therefore lack the experience of who they are. I believe that only we great sinners have this grace.”
- The Year of Mercy is about seeking to make all our sins happy ones, by bringing them all to experience the healing love of the Redeemer, who note only forgives them, but transforms them into a memory of mercy, an ongoing encounter with his love. In a sense, rather than cutting off dead branches and throwing them away, the experience of God’s mercy is that he raises those lifeless branches from the dead and makes them capable of bearing even greater fruit than they were prior to their demise.
- But we have to confront the question: if it’s only we great sinners who have the grace of experiencing who they really are, if being forgiven more is the means to love more, if where sin abounds grace superabounds, if the Lord’s mercy “makes us more blessed than our absence of fault does,” if heaven rejoices more over one repentant sinner than 99 Blessed Virgin Marys who never needed to repent, then why don’t we just sin boldly, and continuously, and ever more appallingly? Because if we did, we wouldn’t really have been receiving God’s mercy in the depth that it’s supposed to reach. God’s mercy is transformative.
- We sing about God’s metamorphic mercy tonight right after the proclamation of the Happy Fault. We proclaim, “This is the night that, even now, throughout the world, sets Christian believers apart from worldly vices and from the gloom of sin, leading them to grace and joining them to his holy ones.” A little later we announce, “The sanctifying power of this night dispels wickedness, washes faults away, restores innocence to the fallen, and joy to mourners, drives out hatred, fosters concord, and brings down the mighty.” God’s mercy does all of this. That’s why St. Paul asks the Romans in the two verses immediately preceding tonight’s Epistle: “What then shall we say? Shall we persist in sin that grace may abound? Of course not! How can we who died to sin yet live in it?,” And then he responds with the words we heard earlier, “Or are you unaware that we who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were indeed buried with him through baptism into death, so that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might live in newness of life. … We know that our old self was crucified with him, so that our sinful body might be done away with, that we might no longer be in slavery to sin. … If, then, we have died with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with him. We know that Christ, raised from the dead, dies no more; death no longer has power over him. As to his death, he died to sin once and for all; as to his life, he lives for God. Consequently, you too must think of yourselves as dead to sin and living for God in Christ Jesus.” In other words, receiving God’s mercy is not the experience of merely having sins wiped away; it’s the experience of death and resurrection. We’re not forgiven just to return to our old way of life. We’re forgiven in order to “live in newness of life,” to “live for God,” to being “dead to sin and alive for God in Christ Jesus.” Sure, we’re going still to struggle. Sure we’re going to need God’s forgiveness anew. But God’s mercy, when it receive it as God wants us to receive it, changes us profoundly, and in a sense transubstantiates us with all our sins into the newness of Christ’s resurrection.
- All of the other aspects of tonight’s “greatest and most noble” of all liturgies reinforce this point. We introduce the liturgy of the Word by saying we will “meditate on how God in times past saved his people and in these, the last days, has sent us his Son as our Redeemer,” praying “that our God may complete this paschal work of salvation by the fullness of redemption.” And then we see how God made the sin of the Israelites a happy one in redeeming from Pharoah in the Exodus in the third reading from the Book of Exodus; how God transformed the sins of the Jews by redeeming the Jews from captivity in Babylon and calling them back “like a wife forsaken” but taken back “with great tenderness,” summoned to “turn to the Lord for mercy, to our God who is generous in forgiving,” and to “turn and receive her, walk by [Wisdom’s] light toward splendor; as Isaiah and Baruch prophesied in the fourth through sixth readings; and how God would liken our redemption, our receiving his mercy, as a heart transplant by foretelling through Ezekiel, “I will sprinkle clean water upon you to cleanse you from all your impurities and from all your idols I will cleanse you. I will give you a new heart and place a new spirit within you, taking from your bodies your stony hearts and giving you natural hearts.” The experience of God’s mercy makes our hearts like unto the Sacred Heart of the One who forgives us.
- That dramatic transformation occurs through the baptism in which, St. Paul tells us, we are crucified and buried with Christ in order to help us live in newness of life. As we bless the water tonight, we will pray to God, “You also made water the instrument of your mercy: for through water you freed your people from slavery and quenched their thirst in the desert; through water the Prophets proclaimed the new covenant you were to enter upon with the human race; and last of all, through water, which Christ made holy in the Jordan, you have renewed our corrupted nature in the bath of regeneration. Therefore may this water be more us a memorial of the Baptism we received,” a memorial not in the sense of memory, but in the sense in which the Eucharist is a memorial, something that brings us in time into the eternal event we received, revivifying all of the graces that took place as we renew our rejection of Satan, his evil works and empty promises, and profess our faith in God the Father, Son and Holy Spirit, the Holy Catholic Church, the communion of saints, the forgiveness of sins, the resurrection of the body and the life everlasting.”
- This merciful transformation reaches its zenith in the source and summit of the Christian life, the starting point and goal of any existence worthy of the name Catholic, not to mention the alpha and omega of the priesthood and consecrated life: namely, the Holy Eucharist. In the Preface, as we prepare to welcome on the altar the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world, we proclaim, “For he is the true Lamb who has taken away the sins of the world; by dying he has destroyed our death and by rising restored our life.” Tomorrow we will sing to this Lamb in the Easter Sequence the joyful thanksgiving about this transformation, “A Lamb the sheep redeems; Christ, who only is sinless, Reconciles sinners to the Father. Death and life have contended in that combat stupendous: The Prince of life, who died, reigns immortal. … Yes, Christ my hope is arisen; … Christ indeed from death is risen, our new life obtaining. Have mercy, victor King, ever reigning!” And then we come to receive that great Risen one, who came so that we might have life and have it to the full, within! O Happy Fault that brought us a Redeemer that not only comes into the world as an expiatory Lamb to take away our sins, give us peace and raise us from the dead, but one who loves us so much that he becomes our own food. We sing in the Exultet, “O love, o Charity beyond all telling, to ransom a slave you gave away your Son!” And we could sing, we should sing, “O Love, O Charity even greater than that, to sanctify a slave you continue to give away your Son!,” who through our receiving his Body and Blood helps us to become ever more sons and daughters in the only begotten and beloved Son of God.
- I’d like to finish with a thought about your participation in this great mystery as Sisters of Life as we mark with thanksgiving and ever-deeper conversion the Silver Jubilee of your foundation in time. You are called to be Witnesses of Life in the midst of a culture that so often promotes death. But that’s a witness not so much of bios, or biological life what we have in common with animals, but of zoe, the Greek word that describes the higher life we have in common with Christ himself, the type of life he entered the world to give us, the type of life that on Easter he restored. You are called in a special way to be witnesses of the Risen Christ, “living signs of the resurrection” (VC 111), witnesses to the power of mercy over sin, witnesses of the true meaning of the body as gift, witnesses that life, not death, has the last word, ultimately witnesses of hope. As St. John Paul II wrote in Evangelium Vitae, “Showing us the [Risen] Son, the Church assures us that in him the forces of death have already been defeated. … The Lamb who was slain is alive, bearing the marks of his Passion in the splendor of the Resurrection. He alone is master of all the events of history: he opens its ‘seals’ (cf. Rev 5:1-10) and proclaims, in time and beyond, the power of life over death. In the ‘new Jerusalem,’ that new world towards which human history is travelling, ‘death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning nor crying nor pain any more, for the former things have passed away’ (Rev 21:4). That’s the message you bear. And that’s the message Christ announces and entrusts to you anew tonight: that no matter how many sins one has committed, even if they be like scarlet, God can, wishes, and indeed died to bring good out of them. His mercy has the last word! And so tonight we sing, with the exulting hosts of heaven, with the trumpet of salvation, with the mighty voices of the peoples, with this holy building shaking with joy, “O Happy Fault, that earned so great, so glorious a Redeemer!,” Jesus Christ, the Resurrection and the Life, our Savior. Let us give thanks to him for he is good, “for his mercy endures forever!” Amen! Alleluia!
The readings for tonight’s Mass were:
Reading 1 GN 1:1—2:2
the earth was a formless wasteland, and darkness covered the abyss,
while a mighty wind swept over the waters.Then God said,
“Let there be light,” and there was light.
God saw how good the light was.
God then separated the light from the darkness.
God called the light “day,” and the darkness he called “night.”
Thus evening came, and morning followed—the first day.
Then God said,
“Let there be a dome in the middle of the waters,
to separate one body of water from the other.”
And so it happened:
God made the dome,
and it separated the water above the dome from the water below it.
God called the dome “the sky.”
Evening came, and morning followed—the second day.
Then God said,
“Let the water under the sky be gathered into a single basin,
so that the dry land may appear.”
And so it happened:
the water under the sky was gathered into its basin,
and the dry land appeared.
God called the dry land “the earth, “
and the basin of the water he called “the sea.”
God saw how good it was.
Then God said,
“Let the earth bring forth vegetation:
every kind of plant that bears seed
and every kind of fruit tree on earth
that bears fruit with its seed in it.”
And so it happened:
the earth brought forth every kind of plant that bears seed
and every kind of fruit tree on earth
that bears fruit with its seed in it.
God saw how good it was.
Evening came, and morning followed—the third day.
Then God said:
“Let there be lights in the dome of the sky,
to separate day from night.
Let them mark the fixed times, the days and the years,
and serve as luminaries in the dome of the sky,
to shed light upon the earth.”
And so it happened:
God made the two great lights,
the greater one to govern the day,
and the lesser one to govern the night;
and he made the stars.
God set them in the dome of the sky,
to shed light upon the earth,
to govern the day and the night,
and to separate the light from the darkness.
God saw how good it was.
Evening came, and morning followed—the fourth day.
Then God said,
“Let the water teem with an abundance of living creatures,
and on the earth let birds fly beneath the dome of the sky.”
And so it happened:
God created the great sea monsters
and all kinds of swimming creatures with which the water teems,
and all kinds of winged birds.
God saw how good it was, and God blessed them, saying,
“Be fertile, multiply, and fill the water of the seas;
and let the birds multiply on the earth.”
Evening came, and morning followed—the fifth day.
Then God said,
“Let the earth bring forth all kinds of living creatures:
cattle, creeping things, and wild animals of all kinds.”
And so it happened:
God made all kinds of wild animals, all kinds of cattle,
and all kinds of creeping things of the earth.
God saw how good it was.
Then God said:
“Let us make man in our image, after our likeness.
Let them have dominion over the fish of the sea,
the birds of the air, and the cattle,
and over all the wild animals
and all the creatures that crawl on the ground.”
God created man in his image;
in the image of God he created him;
male and female he created them.
God blessed them, saying:
“Be fertile and multiply;
fill the earth and subdue it.
Have dominion over the fish of the sea, the birds of the air,
and all the living things that move on the earth.”
God also said:
“See, I give you every seed-bearing plant all over the earth
and every tree that has seed-bearing fruit on it to be your food;
and to all the animals of the land, all the birds of the air,
and all the living creatures that crawl on the ground,
I give all the green plants for food.”
And so it happened.
God looked at everything he had made, and he found it very good.
Evening came, and morning followed—the sixth day.
Thus the heavens and the earth and all their array were completed.
Since on the seventh day God was finished
with the work he had been doing,
he rested on the seventh day from all the work he had undertaken.
Responsorial Psalm PS 104:1-2, 5-6, 10, 12, 13-14, 24, 35
R. (30) Lord, send out your Spirit, and renew the face of the earth.
Bless the LORD, O my soul!
O LORD, my God, you are great indeed!
You are clothed with majesty and glory,
robed in light as with a cloak.
R. Lord, send out your Spirit, and renew the face of the earth.
You fixed the earth upon its foundation,
not to be moved forever;
with the ocean, as with a garment, you covered it;
above the mountains the waters stood.
R. Lord, send out your Spirit, and renew the face of the earth.
You send forth springs into the watercourses
that wind among the mountains.
Beside them the birds of heaven dwell;
from among the branches they send forth their song.
R. Lord, send out your Spirit, and renew the face of the earth.
You water the mountains from your palace;
the earth is replete with the fruit of your works.
You raise grass for the cattle,
and vegetation for man’s use,
Producing bread from the earth.
R. Lord, send out your Spirit, and renew the face of the earth.
How manifold are your works, O LORD!
In wisdom you have wrought them all—the earth is full of your creatures.
Bless the LORD, O my soul! Alleluia.
R. Lord, send out your Spirit, and renew the face of the earth.
Or PS 33:4-5, 6-7, 12-13, 20 AND 22
R. (5b) The earth is full of the goodness of the Lord.
Upright is the word of the LORD,
and all his works are trustworthy.
He loves justice and right;
of the kindness of the LORD the earth is full.
R. The earth is full of the goodness of the Lord.
By the word of the LORD the heavens were made;
by the breath of his mouth all their host.
He gathers the waters of the sea as in a flask;
in cellars he confines the deep.
R. The earth is full of the goodness of the Lord.
Blessed the nation whose God is the LORD,
the people he has chosen for his own inheritance.
From heaven the LORD looks down;
he sees all mankind.
R. The earth is full of the goodness of the Lord.
Our soul waits for the LORD,
who is our help and our shield.
May your kindness, O LORD, be upon us
who have put our hope in you.
R. The earth is full of the goodness of the Lord.
Reading 2 GN 22:1-18
God put Abraham to the test.
He called to him, “Abraham!”
“Here I am,” he replied.
Then God said:
“Take your son Isaac, your only one, whom you love,
and go to the land of Moriah.
There you shall offer him up as a holocaust
on a height that I will point out to you.”
Early the next morning Abraham saddled his donkey,
took with him his son Isaac and two of his servants as well,
and with the wood that he had cut for the holocaust,
set out for the place of which God had told him.
On the third day Abraham got sight of the place from afar.
Then he said to his servants:
“Both of you stay here with the donkey,
while the boy and I go on over yonder.
We will worship and then come back to you.”
Thereupon Abraham took the wood for the holocaust
and laid it on his son Isaac’s shoulders,
while he himself carried the fire and the knife.
As the two walked on together, Isaac spoke to his father Abraham:
“Father!” Isaac said.
“Yes, son,” he replied.
Isaac continued, “Here are the fire and the wood,
but where is the sheep for the holocaust?”
“Son,” Abraham answered,
“God himself will provide the sheep for the holocaust.”
Then the two continued going forward.
When they came to the place of which God had told him,
Abraham built an altar there and arranged the wood on it.
Next he tied up his son Isaac,
and put him on top of the wood on the altar.
Then he reached out and took the knife to slaughter his son.
But the LORD’s messenger called to him from heaven,
“Abraham, Abraham!”
“Here I am!” he answered.
“Do not lay your hand on the boy,” said the messenger.
“Do not do the least thing to him.
I know now how devoted you are to God,
since you did not withhold from me your own beloved son.”
As Abraham looked about,
he spied a ram caught by its horns in the thicket.
So he went and took the ram
and offered it up as a holocaust in place of his son.
Abraham named the site Yahweh-yireh;
hence people now say, “On the mountain the LORD will see.”
Again the LORD’s messenger called to Abraham from heaven and said:
“I swear by myself, declares the LORD,
that because you acted as you did
in not withholding from me your beloved son,
I will bless you abundantly
and make your descendants as countless
as the stars of the sky and the sands of the seashore;
your descendants shall take possession
of the gates of their enemies,
and in your descendants all the nations of the earth shall find blessing—
all this because you obeyed my command.”
Or GN 22:1-2, 9A, 10-13, 15-18
God put Abraham to the test.
He called to him, “Abraham!”
“Here I am,” he replied.
Then God said:
“Take your son Isaac, your only one, whom you love,
and go to the land of Moriah.
There you shall offer him up as a holocaust
on a height that I will point out to you.”
When they came to the place of which God had told him,
Abraham built an altar there and arranged the wood on it.
Then he reached out and took the knife to slaughter his son.
But the LORD’s messenger called to him from heaven,
“Abraham, Abraham!”
“Here I am,” he answered.
“Do not lay your hand on the boy,” said the messenger.
“Do not do the least thing to him.
I know now how devoted you are to God,
since you did not withhold from me your own beloved son.”
As Abraham looked about,
he spied a ram caught by its horns in the thicket.
So he went and took the ram
and offered it up as a holocaust in place of his son.
Again the LORD’s messenger called to Abraham from heaven and said:
“I swear by myself, declares the LORD,
that because you acted as you did
in not withholding from me your beloved son,
I will bless you abundantly
and make your descendants as countless
as the stars of the sky and the sands of the seashore;
your descendants shall take possession
of the gates of their enemies,
and in your descendants all the nations of the earth shall find blessing—
all this because you obeyed my command.”
Responsorial Psalm PS 16:5, 8, 9-10, 11
R. (1) You are my inheritance, O Lord.
O LORD, my allotted portion and my cup,
you it is who hold fast my lot.
I set the LORD ever before me;
with him at my right hand I shall not be disturbed.
R. You are my inheritance, O Lord.
Therefore my heart is glad and my soul rejoices,
my body, too, abides in confidence;
because you will not abandon my soul to the netherworld,
nor will you suffer your faithful one to undergo corruption.
R. You are my inheritance, O Lord.
You will show me the path to life,
fullness of joys in your presence,
the delights at your right hand forever.
R. You are my inheritance, O Lord.
Reading 3 EX 14:15—15:1
The LORD said to Moses, “Why are you crying out to me?
Tell the Israelites to go forward.
And you, lift up your staff and, with hand outstretched over the sea,
split the sea in two,
that the Israelites may pass through it on dry land.
But I will make the Egyptians so obstinate
that they will go in after them.
Then I will receive glory through Pharaoh and all his army,
his chariots and charioteers.
The Egyptians shall know that I am the LORD,
when I receive glory through Pharaoh
and his chariots and charioteers.”
The angel of God, who had been leading Israel’s camp,
now moved and went around behind them.
The column of cloud also, leaving the front,
took up its place behind them,
so that it came between the camp of the Egyptians
and that of Israel.
But the cloud now became dark, and thus the night passed
without the rival camps coming any closer together
all night long.
Then Moses stretched out his hand over the sea,
and the LORD swept the sea
with a strong east wind throughout the night
and so turned it into dry land.
When the water was thus divided,
the Israelites marched into the midst of the sea on dry land,
with the water like a wall to their right and to their left.
The Egyptians followed in pursuit;
all Pharaoh’s horses and chariots and charioteers went after them
right into the midst of the sea.
In the night watch just before dawn
the LORD cast through the column of the fiery cloud
upon the Egyptian force a glance that threw it into a panic;
and he so clogged their chariot wheels
that they could hardly drive.
With that the Egyptians sounded the retreat before Israel,
because the LORD was fighting for them against the Egyptians.
Then the LORD told Moses, “Stretch out your hand over the sea,
that the water may flow back upon the Egyptians,
upon their chariots and their charioteers.”
So Moses stretched out his hand over the sea,
and at dawn the sea flowed back to its normal depth.
The Egyptians were fleeing head on toward the sea,
when the LORD hurled them into its midst.
As the water flowed back,
it covered the chariots and the charioteers of Pharaoh’s whole army
which had followed the Israelites into the sea.
Not a single one of them escaped.
But the Israelites had marched on dry land
through the midst of the sea,
with the water like a wall to their right and to their left.
Thus the LORD saved Israel on that day
from the power of the Egyptians.
When Israel saw the Egyptians lying dead on the seashore
and beheld the great power that the LORD
had shown against the Egyptians,
they feared the LORD and believed in him and in his servant Moses.
Then Moses and the Israelites sang this song to the LORD:
I will sing to the LORD, for he is gloriously triumphant;
horse and chariot he has cast into the sea.
Responsorial Psalm EX 15:1-2, 3-4, 5-6, 17-18
R. (1b) Let us sing to the Lord; he has covered himself in glory.
I will sing to the LORD, for he is gloriously triumphant;
horse and chariot he has cast into the sea.
My strength and my courage is the LORD,
and he has been my savior.
He is my God, I praise him;
the God of my father, I extol him.
R. Let us sing to the Lord; he has covered himself in glory.
The LORD is a warrior,
LORD is his name!
Pharaoh’s chariots and army he hurled into the sea;
the elite of his officers were submerged in the Red Sea.
R. Let us sing to the Lord; he has covered himself in glory.
The flood waters covered them,
they sank into the depths like a stone.
Your right hand, O LORD, magnificent in power,
your right hand, O LORD, has shattered the enemy.
R. Let us sing to the Lord; he has covered himself in glory.
You brought in the people you redeemed
and planted them on the mountain of your inheritanceC
the place where you made your seat, O LORD,
the sanctuary, LORD, which your hands established.
The LORD shall reign forever and ever.
R. Let us sing to the Lord; he has covered himself in glory.
Reading 4 IS 54:5-14
The One who has become your husband is your Maker;
his name is the LORD of hosts;
your redeemer is the Holy One of Israel,
called God of all the earth.
The LORD calls you back,
like a wife forsaken and grieved in spirit,
a wife married in youth and then cast off,
says your God.
For a brief moment I abandoned you,
but with great tenderness I will take you back.
In an outburst of wrath, for a moment
I hid my face from you;
but with enduring love I take pity on you,
says the LORD, your redeemer.
This is for me like the days of Noah,
when I swore that the waters of Noah
should never again deluge the earth;
so I have sworn not to be angry with you,
or to rebuke you.
Though the mountains leave their place
and the hills be shaken,
my love shall never leave you
nor my covenant of peace be shaken,
says the LORD, who has mercy on you.
O afflicted one, storm-battered and unconsoled,
I lay your pavements in carnelians,
and your foundations in sapphires;
I will make your battlements of rubies,
your gates of carbuncles,
and all your walls of precious stones.
All your children shall be taught by the LORD,
and great shall be the peace of your children.
In justice shall you be established,
far from the fear of oppression,
where destruction cannot come near you.
Responsorial Psalm PS 30:2, 4, 5-6, 11-12, 13
R. (2a) I will praise you, Lord, for you have rescued me.
I will extol you, O LORD, for you drew me clear
and did not let my enemies rejoice over me.
O LORD, you brought me up from the netherworld;
you preserved me from among those going down into the pit.
R. I will praise you, Lord, for you have rescued me.
Sing praise to the LORD, you his faithful ones,
and give thanks to his holy name.
For his anger lasts but a moment;
a lifetime, his good will.
At nightfall, weeping enters in,
but with the dawn, rejoicing.
R. I will praise you, Lord, for you have rescued me.
Hear, O LORD, and have pity on me;
O LORD, be my helper.
You changed my mourning into dancing;
O LORD, my God, forever will I give you thanks.
R. I will praise you, Lord, for you have rescued me.
Reading 5 IS 55:1-11
Thus says the LORD:
All you who are thirsty,
come to the water!
You who have no money,
come, receive grain and eat;
come, without paying and without cost,
drink wine and milk!
Why spend your money for what is not bread,
your wages for what fails to satisfy?
Heed me, and you shall eat well,
you shall delight in rich fare.
Come to me heedfully,
listen, that you may have life.
I will renew with you the everlasting covenant,
the benefits assured to David.
As I made him a witness to the peoples,
a leader and commander of nations,
so shall you summon a nation you knew not,
and nations that knew you not shall run to you,
because of the LORD, your God,
the Holy One of Israel, who has glorified you.
Seek the LORD while he may be found,
call him while he is near.
Let the scoundrel forsake his way,
and the wicked man his thoughts;
let him turn to the LORD for mercy;
to our God, who is generous in forgiving.
For my thoughts are not your thoughts,
nor are your ways my ways, says the LORD.
As high as the heavens are above the earth,
so high are my ways above your ways
and my thoughts above your thoughts.
For just as from the heavens
the rain and snow come down
and do not return there
till they have watered the earth,
making it fertile and fruitful,
giving seed to the one who sows
and bread to the one who eats,
so shall my word be
that goes forth from my mouth;
my word shall not return to me void,
but shall do my will,
achieving the end for which I sent it.
Responsorial Psalm IS 12:2-3, 4, 5-6
R. (3) You will draw water joyfully from the springs of salvation.
God indeed is my savior;
I am confident and unafraid.
My strength and my courage is the LORD,
and he has been my savior.
With joy you will draw water
at the fountain of salvation.
R. You will draw water joyfully from the springs of salvation.
Give thanks to the LORD, acclaim his name;
among the nations make known his deeds,
proclaim how exalted is his name.
R. You will draw water joyfully from the springs of salvation.
Sing praise to the LORD for his glorious achievement;
let this be known throughout all the earth.
Shout with exultation, O city of Zion,
for great in your midst
is the Holy One of Israel!
R. You will draw water joyfully from the springs of salvation.
Reading 6 BAR 3:9-15, 32-4:4
Hear, O Israel, the commandments of life:
listen, and know prudence!
How is it, Israel,
that you are in the land of your foes,
grown old in a foreign land,
defiled with the dead,
accounted with those destined for the netherworld?
You have forsaken the fountain of wisdom!
Had you walked in the way of God,
you would have dwelt in enduring peace.
Learn where prudence is,
where strength, where understanding;
that you may know also
where are length of days, and life,
where light of the eyes, and peace.
Who has found the place of wisdom,
who has entered into her treasuries?
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;
he who dismisses the light, and it departs,
calls it, and it obeys him trembling;
before whom the stars at their posts
shine and rejoice;
when he calls them, they answer, “Here we are!”
shining with joy for their Maker.
Such is our God;
no other is to be compared to him:
He has traced out the whole way of understanding,
and has given her to Jacob, his servant,
to Israel, his beloved son.
Since then she has appeared on earth,
and moved among people.
She is the book of the precepts of God,
the law that endures forever;
all who cling to her will live,
but those will die who forsake her.
Turn, O Jacob, and receive her:
walk by her light toward splendor.
Give not your glory to another,
your privileges to an alien race.
Blessed are we, O Israel;
for what pleases God is known to us!
Responsorial Psalm PS 19:8, 9, 10, 11
R. (John 6:68c) Lord, you have the words of everlasting life.
The law of the LORD is perfect,
refreshing the soul;
the decree of the LORD is trustworthy,
giving wisdom to the simple.
R. Lord, you have the words of everlasting life.
The precepts of the LORD are right,
rejoicing the heart;
the command of the LORD is clear,
enlightening the eye.
R. Lord, you have the words of everlasting life.
The fear of the LORD is pure,
enduring forever;
the ordinances of the LORD are true,
all of them just.
R. Lord, you have the words of everlasting life.
They are more precious than gold,
than a heap of purest gold;
sweeter also than syrup
or honey from the comb.
R. Lord, you have the words of everlasting life.
Reading 7 EZ 36:16-17A, 18-28
The word of the LORD came to me, saying:
Son of man, when the house of Israel lived in their land,
they defiled it by their conduct and deeds.
Therefore I poured out my fury upon them
because of the blood that they poured out on the ground,
and because they defiled it with idols.
I scattered them among the nations,
dispersing them over foreign lands;
according to their conduct and deeds I judged them.
But when they came among the nations wherever they came,
they served to profane my holy name,
because it was said of them: “These are the people of the LORD,
yet they had to leave their land.”
So I have relented because of my holy name
which the house of Israel profaned
among the nations where they came.
Therefore say to the house of Israel: Thus says the Lord GOD:
Not for your sakes do I act, house of Israel,
but for the sake of my holy name,
which you profaned among the nations to which you came.
I will prove the holiness of my great name, profaned among the nations,
in whose midst you have profaned it.
Thus the nations shall know that I am the LORD, says the Lord GOD,
when in their sight I prove my holiness through you.
For I will take you away from among the nations,
gather you from all the foreign lands,
and bring you back to your own land.
I will sprinkle clean water upon you
to cleanse you from all your impurities,
and from all your idols I will cleanse you.
I will give you a new heart and place a new spirit within you,
taking from your bodies your stony hearts
and giving you natural hearts.
I will put my spirit within you and make you live by my statutes,
careful to observe my decrees.
You shall live in the land I gave your fathers;
you shall be my people, and I will be your God.
Responsorial Psalm PS 51:12-13, 14-15, 18-19
When baptism is not celebrated.
R. (12a) Create a clean heart in me, O God.
A clean heart create for me, O God,
and a steadfast spirit renew within me.
Cast me not out from your presence,
and your Holy Spirit take not from me.
R. Create a clean heart in me, O God.
Give me back the joy of your salvation,
and a willing spirit sustain in me.
I will teach transgressors your ways,
and sinners shall return to you.
R. Create a clean heart in me, O God.
For you are not pleased with sacrifices;
should I offer a holocaust, you would not accept it.
My sacrifice, O God, is a contrite spirit;
a heart contrite and humbled, O God, you will not spurn.
R. Create a clean heart in me, O God.
Epistle ROM 6:3-11
Are you unaware that we who were baptized into Christ Jesus
were baptized into his death?
We were indeed buried with him through baptism into death,
so that, just as Christ was raised from the dead
by the glory of the Father,
we too might live in newness of life.For if we have grown into union with him through a death like his,
we shall also be united with him in the resurrection.
We know that our old self was crucified with him,
so that our sinful body might be done away with,
that we might no longer be in slavery to sin.
For a dead person has been absolved from sin.
If, then, we have died with Christ,
we believe that we shall also live with him.
We know that Christ, raised from the dead, dies no more;
death no longer has power over him.
As to his death, he died to sin once and for all;
as to his life, he lives for God.
Consequently, you too must think of yourselves as being dead to sin
and living for God in Christ Jesus.
Responsorial Psalm PS 118:1-2, 16-17, 22-23
R. Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia.
Give thanks to the LORD, for he is good,
for his mercy endures forever.
Let the house of Israel say,
“His mercy endures forever.”
R. Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia.
The right hand of the LORD has struck with power;
the right hand of the LORD is exalted.
I shall not die, but live,
and declare the works of the LORD.
R. Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia.
The stone the builders rejected
has become the cornerstone.
By the LORD has this been done;
it is wonderful in our eyes.
R. Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia.
Gospel LK 24:1-12
At daybreak on the first day of the week
the women who had come from Galilee with Jesus
took the spices they had prepared
and went to the tomb.
They found the stone rolled away from the tomb;
but when they entered,
they did not find the body of the Lord Jesus.
While they were puzzling over this, behold,
two men in dazzling garments appeared to them.
They were terrified and bowed their faces to the ground.
They said to them,
“Why do you seek the living one among the dead?
He is not here, but he has been raised.
Remember what he said to you while he was still in Galilee,
that the Son of Man must be handed over to sinners
and be crucified, and rise on the third day.”
And they remembered his words.
Then they returned from the tomb
and announced all these things to the eleven
and to all the others.
The women were Mary Magdalene, Joanna, and Mary the mother of James;
the others who accompanied them also told this to the apostles,
but their story seemed like nonsense
and they did not believe them.
But Peter got up and ran to the tomb,
bent down, and saw the burial cloths alone;
then he went home amazed at what had happened.
