Pope ushers in Easter Season

(April 4, 2010) Pope Benedict ushered in Easter of 2010 with a Vigil Mass Saturday night, in St. Peter’s Basilica. The German-born pontiff, marking the 5th Easter season of his pontificate, began the service in the atrium of a darkened St Peter's Basilica where he blessed the fire and engraved the Greek letters Alpha and Omega on a large candle. The candle symbolizes Christ, and the Greek letters meaning He is the beginning and end of everything. As the candle was carried into the darkened basilica, a chant of “Light of Christ” echoed all around. The church became a sea of flickering flames as thousands of faithful inside lit candles before the lights were turned on in a ritual symbolising the darkness in the world after Christ's death and the light of the resurrection. The lights were then switched on and the Mass began, led by Pope Benedict, dressed in gold-and-white coloured vestments.
In his homily, Pope Benedict reflected on the mysteries of death, life and immortality, wondering what would happen if modern medicine could remove death altogether. “Would that be a good thing?” he asked. “Humanity would become extraordinarily old; there would be no more room for youth. Capacity for innovation would die and endless life would be no paradise, if anything a condemnation,” the 82-year old Pope said. Rather than prolonging death, baptism offers the “medicine of immortality,” the Pope said weaving his sermon around the theme of eternal life.
The Pope said the true cure for death cannot lead simply to an indefinite prolongation of this current life. It would have to transform our lives from within in order to be truly fit for eternity. The cure for death, this true medicine of immortality, exists and is within our reach in baptism, the Pope said. He cited the early Christian rite of Baptism when the neophyte was stripped of his clothes and given a new white garment, meaning the removal of the old garment of sin and re-clothing with the new, a process that continues throughout life. A neophyte would have to face the west, the symbol of darkness, sunset, death and hence the dominion of sin, and would have to say ‘no’ to the devil, to his pomp and to sin. In the words of St. Paul, these old garments are “fornication, impurity, licentiousness, idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, anger, selfishness, dissension, party spirit, envy, drunkenness, carousing and the like”. Then, the one to be baptized would have to turn towards the east – the symbol of light, the symbol of the newly rising sun of history, the symbol of Christ. This putting on of new “garments”, in the words of St. Paul are the “fruits of the spirit” such as “love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control.” Indeed, the cure for death does exist, the Pope said, and “Christ is the tree of life.” “If we remain close to him, then we have life,” he added.
The Easter Vigil Mass also included the renewal of baptismal promises and the baptism of 6 adults from Somalia, Albania, Russia, Sudan and Japan.
The following morning, Pope Benedict XVI presided over Easter Sunday Mass in the open in St. Peter’s Square under a drizzle. At the start of the Mass, Cardinal Angelo Sodano, the Dean of the College of Cardinals greeted the Pope expressing the closeness and solidarity of the entire church for him especially at this moment when as he being unjustly slandered by media accusations regarding the priestly sex abuse scandal in the Church. “Holy Father, the people of God are with you and will not let themselves be influenced by the petty gossip of the moment, by the trials that sometimes assail the community of believers,” Cardinal Sodano said. "The Church is with you," Sodano told the pope to the cheers of thousands of people St Peter's Square. He particularly expressed the solidarity of 400,000 priests who generously serve in schools, hospitals and missions in 3000 church territories around the world.