“Light makes life possible. It makes encounter possible. It makes communication
possible. It makes knowledge, access to reality and to truth, possible.” Because
this is true, “The darkness enshrouding God and obscuring values is the real threat
to our existence and to the world in general.” These were just some of the words Pope
Benedict XVI addressed to the faithful in his homily during the Easter Vigil Mass
in St Peter’s Basilica, on the night separating Holy Saturday and Easter Sunday, for
which the light of Christ, risen from the dead, is a central theme: beginning in silence
and darkness, the paschal fire is lit, and with it the Easter Candle, the light of
which begins as a far-off flicker, before spreading until it splits the night with
the brilliance of a thousand torches. Listen to Chris Altieri's report:
Below, please
find the full text of Pope Benedict XVI's homily at the Easter Vigil Mass
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“On Easter night, the night of the new creation, the Church presents the
mystery of light using a unique and very humble symbol: the Paschal candle. This
is a light that lives from sacrifice. The candle shines inasmuch as it is burnt up.
It gives light, inasmuch as it gives itself. Thus the Church presents most beautifully
the paschal mystery of Christ, who gives himself and so bestows the great light”,
said Pope Benedict XVI Saturday evening as he led a congregation of thousands in the
Great Easter Vigil, in St Peter’s Basilica.
Since early morning pilgrims had
patiently queued for entrance to the basilica beneath foreboding skies, with many
more following the liturgy on giant screens in the square. In his homily Pope Benedict
drew on the first act of the Easter vigil; when a basilica shrouded in dark slowly
flickers to life as the flame of the newly inscribed and blessed Pascal candle passes
through the central nave, lighting the candles of the faithful, to the chant “Lumen
Christi”. And then the singing of the Easter proclamation, the Exultet.
He
said this ancient hymn reminds us that “in the candle, creation becomes a bearer of
light”. But it also serves “as a summons to us to become involved in the community
of the Church, whose raison d’être is to let the light of Christ shine upon the world”.
During
the ceremony the Holy Father welcomed 8 adults into the Church from Italy, Germany,
Slovakia, Albania, Cameron, Turkmenistan and the United States of America. He said
“The Lord says to the newly-baptized: Fiat lux – let there be light. God’s new day
– the day of indestructible life, comes also to us. Christ takes you by the hand.
From now on you are held by him and walk with him into the light, into real life.
For this reason the early Church called baptism photismos – illumination”.
“The
darkness that poses a real threat to mankind, after all, is the fact that he can see
and investigate tangible material things, but cannot see where the world is going
or whence it comes, where our own life is going, what is good and what is evil. The
darkness enshrouding God and obscuring values is the real threat to our existence
and to the world in general. If God and moral values, the difference between good
and evil, remain in darkness, then all other “lights”, that put such incredible technical
feats within our reach, are not only progress but also dangers that put us and the
world at risk. Today we can illuminate our cities so brightly that the stars of the
sky are no longer visible. Is this not an image of the problems caused by our version
of enlightenment? With regard to material things, our knowledge and our technical
accomplishments are legion, but what reaches beyond, the things of God and the question
of good, we can no longer identify. Faith, then, which reveals God’s light to us,
is the true enlightenment, enabling God’s light to break into our world, opening our
eyes to the true light”.
Homily of His Holiness Pope Benedict XVI
Easter Vigil Holy Saturday, 7 April 2012
Dear Brothers and Sisters,
Easter
is the feast of the new creation. Jesus is risen and dies no more. He has opened
the door to a new life, one that no longer knows illness and death. He has taken
mankind up into God himself. “Flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God”,
as Saint Paul says in the First Letter to the Corinthians (15:50). On the subject
of Christ’s resurrection and our resurrection, the Church writer Tertullian in the
third century was bold enough to write: “Rest assured, flesh and blood, through Christ
you have gained your place in heaven and in the Kingdom of God” (CCL II, 994). A
new dimension has opened up for mankind. Creation has become greater and broader.
Easter Day ushers in a new creation, but that is precisely why the Church starts the
liturgy on this day with the old creation, so that we can learn to understand the
new one aright. At the beginning of the Liturgy of the Word on Easter night, then,
comes the account of the creation of the world. Two things are particularly important
here in connection with this liturgy. On the one hand, creation is presented as a
whole that includes the phenomenon of time. The seven days are an image of completeness,
unfolding in time. They are ordered towards the seventh day, the day of the freedom
of all creatures for God and for one another. Creation is therefore directed towards
the coming together of God and his creatures; it exists so as to open up a space for
the response to God’s great glory, an encounter between love and freedom. On the
other hand, what the Church hears on Easter night is above all the first element of
the creation account: “God said, ‘let there be light!’” (Gen 1:3). The creation account
begins symbolically with the creation of light. The sun and the moon are created
only on the fourth day. The creation account calls them lights, set by God in the
firmament of heaven. In this way he deliberately takes away the divine character
that the great religions had assigned to them. No, they are not gods. They are shining
bodies created by the one God. But they are preceded by the light through which God’s
glory is reflected in the essence of the created being.
What is the creation
account saying here? Light makes life possible. It makes encounter possible. It
makes communication possible. It makes knowledge, access to reality and to truth,
possible. And insofar as it makes knowledge possible, it makes freedom and progress
possible. Evil hides. Light, then, is also an expression of the good that both is
and creates brightness. It is daylight, which makes it possible for us to act. To
say that God created light means that God created the world as a space for knowledge
and truth, as a space for encounter and freedom, as a space for good and for love.
Matter is fundamentally good, being itself is good. And evil does not come from God-made
being, rather, it comes into existence through denial. It is a “no”.
At Easter,
on the morning of the first day of the week, God said once again: “Let there be light”.
The night on the Mount of Olives, the solar eclipse of Jesus’ passion and death, the
night of the grave had all passed. Now it is the first day once again – creation
is beginning anew. “Let there be light”, says God, “and there was light”: Jesus rises
from the grave. Life is stronger than death. Good is stronger than evil. Love is
stronger than hate. Truth is stronger than lies. The darkness of the previous days
is driven away the moment Jesus rises from the grave and himself becomes God’s pure
light. But this applies not only to him, not only to the darkness of those days.
With the resurrection of Jesus, light itself is created anew. He draws all of us
after him into the new light of the resurrection and he conquers all darkness. He
is God’s new day, new for all of us.
But how is this to come about? How does
all this affect us so that instead of remaining word it becomes a reality that draws
us in? Through the sacrament of baptism and the profession of faith, the Lord has
built a bridge across to us, through which the new day reaches us. The Lord says
to the newly-baptized: Fiat lux – let there be light. God’s new day – the day of indestructible
life, comes also to us. Christ takes you by the hand. From now on you are held by
him and walk with him into the light, into real life. For this reason the early Church
called baptism photismos – illumination.
Why was this? The darkness that poses
a real threat to mankind, after all, is the fact that he can see and investigate tangible
material things, but cannot see where the world is going or whence it comes, where
our own life is going, what is good and what is evil. The darkness enshrouding God
and obscuring values is the real threat to our existence and to the world in general.
If God and moral values, the difference between good and evil, remain in darkness,
then all other “lights”, that put such incredible technical feats within our reach,
are not only progress but also dangers that put us and the world at risk. Today we
can illuminate our cities so brightly that the stars of the sky are no longer visible.
Is this not an image of the problems caused by our version of enlightenment? With
regard to material things, our knowledge and our technical accomplishments are legion,
but what reaches beyond, the things of God and the question of good, we can no longer
identify. Faith, then, which reveals God’s light to us, is the true enlightenment,
enabling God’s light to break into our world, opening our eyes to the true light.
Dear
friends, as I conclude, I would like to add one more thought about light and illumination.
On Easter night, the night of the new creation, the Church presents the mystery of
light using a unique and very humble symbol: the Paschal candle. This is a light
that lives from sacrifice. The candle shines inasmuch as it is burnt up. It gives
light, inasmuch as it gives itself. Thus the Church presents most beautifully the
paschal mystery of Christ, who gives himself and so bestows the great light. Secondly,
we should remember that the light of the candle is a fire. Fire is the power that
shapes the world, the force of transformation. And fire gives warmth. Here too the
mystery of Christ is made newly visible. Christ, the light, is fire, flame, burning
up evil and so reshaping both the world and ourselves. “Whoever is close to me is
close to the fire,” as Jesus is reported by Origen to have said. And this fire is
both heat and light: not a cold light, but one through which God’s warmth and goodness
reach down to us.
The great hymn of the Exsultet, which the deacon sings at
the beginning of the Easter liturgy, points us quite gently towards a further aspect.
It reminds us that this object, the candle, has its origin in the work of bees. So
the whole of creation plays its part. In the candle, creation becomes a bearer of
light. But in the mind of the Fathers, the candle also in some sense contains a silent
reference to the Church,. The cooperation of the living community of believers in
the Church in some way resembles the activity of bees. It builds up the community
of light. So the candle serves as a summons to us to become involved in the community
of the Church, whose raison d’être is to let the light of Christ shine upon the world.
Let
us pray to the Lord at this time that he may grant us to experience the joy of his
light; let us pray that we ourselves may become bearers of his light, and that through
the Church, Christ’s radiant face may enter our world (cf. LG 1). Amen.