April 18, 2022
Paulist Fr. Rich Andre preached this homily on the Easter Vigil on April 16, 2022, at St. Austin Catholic Parish in Austin, TX. There are many options for readings at the Easter Vigil. This homily is based on Genesis 1:1 – 2:2; Genesis 22:1-18; Exodus 14:15 – 15:1; Isaiah 54:10-14; Isaiah 55:1-11; Baruch 3:9-15, 32 – 4:4; Ezekiel 37:1-14; Romans 6:3-11; and Luke 24:1-12.
God is always doing new things, in new and surprising ways.
Beth, Renee, Philip, Blake, Kira, Christian, Kristina, Yujin, and Nina: you’ve had a very unusual initiation process. You’ve barely ever met together in person. We’ve skipped many of the optional rites. So what? It’s totally fine. The way the Church has initated adults into the faith has changed repeatedy over the centuries, as circumstances in the Church have changed.
In the earliest days, Christians were worried that people seeking to join the faith might be spies for the Roman government, trying to find out the secret places where they met for worship. The Christians instructed these people seeking the faith only after they initiated them. By the third century, the Christians extensively questioned the seekers about their lifestyles, and then began a three-year instruction process, before baptizing them at the Easter Vigil. By the end of the fourth century, the Church needed to ascertain that people weren’t joining merely to get government positions in the Byzantine Empire, so they could no longer give such extensive instructions.
Over the next 1600 years, initiation continued to change due to the circumstances. Much of the old ways were lost over the centuries. For example, for the last several centuries before 1957, hardly anyone was initiated at the Easter Vigil. In fact, many working Americans and Canadians came into the Church in the mid-20th century on their lunch breaks in downtown Catholic Information Centers run by the Paulist Fathers. How we currently celebrate the Vigil began in 1957, and RCIA was only created in 1972, both bringing back the best of what existed in previous time periods, which had only been recently rediscovered through rigorous scholarship. God is always doing new things, in new and surprising ways.
Now, more than ever, the Church recognizes that the preparation of each initiate should be tailored to your specific needs, rather than requiring you all to conform to a set program. Hoshi, I haven’t forgotten about you: you did your preparation elsewhere, and you have only joined us at St. Austin in the past few weeks to complete your initiation. Tonight, you become just as much a part of our community as anyone else!
Tonight, the circumstances surrounding the faith journeys of the ten of you and the celebration of our Vigil give all of us an opportunity to reflect on the sacraments of initiation in a different way than usual. Let’s start with baptism. You have all been baptized already – some as Catholics and some in other denominations. Let’s take a few moments, all of us, to reflect silently.
- What gifts has God given us in baptism?
- Again: what gifts has God given us in baptism? [Pause.]
Be glad we don’t celebrate baptisms for adults the Church did at one point, when we commanded the elect – without warning – to strip naked, stand in the baptismal pool, and have their sponsors kick their feet out from under them as the bishop said, “I baptize you in the name of the Father”! Let’s instead consider how, 1600 years ago, St. John Chrysostum connected baptism with our third reading tonight. He preached:
You did not see Pharaoh drowned with his armies, but you have seen the devil with his weapons overcome by the waters of baptism. The Israelites passed through the sea; you have passed from death to life. They were delivered from the Egyptians; you have been delivered from the powers of darkness. The Israelites were freed from slavery to a pagan people; you have been freed from the much greater slavery to sin.
Chrysostum continued by saying that the gifts we have received in baptism are greater than the gifts that the Israelites received at the Red Sea.
Regarding confirmation, let’s reflect on the gifts of the Holy Spirit. For those of us who have already been confirmed, what gifts did we receive back then? For me, the greatest gift I received at my confirmation in 1987 was the gift of empathy for others, or maybe we could call it the spirit of understanding. And for the ten of you about to be confirmed, I ask you: with all the isolation, economic upheaval, sickness, instability, and death of the past two years, what specific gifts do you wish to receive from the Holy Spirit? So again, the question for everyone is:
- What specific gifts did you receive – or do you wish to receive tonight – from the Holy Spirit? [Pause.]
In our Ezekiel reading tonight, the Holy Spirit explained that the dry bones were the people of Israel living in a time of captivity and destruction even worse than what is currently happening in Ukraine, saying, “Our hope is lost, and we are cut off.” But the Spirit proclaimed, “I will open your graves and have you rise from them…. I will put my spirit in you that you may live.” Beth, Renee, Philip, Blake, Kira, Christian, Kristina, Hoshi, Yujin, and Nina: I pray that the Holy Spirit may reveal to each of you how to rise, how to thrive, how to live more fully in the light of Christ!
And lastly, we come to the Eucharist, the Blessed Sacrament, the ultimate sacrament of our unity with our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ and of our unity with one another. Five of our you have not yet received your first communion, and neither have you, Bladen, so you’ll join your mother in receiving first communion tonight. Once again, let’s take a moment of silent reflection:
- How do each of us receiving communion tonight – whether for the first time or for the four thousandth time – need Jesus to feed us at this moment on our faith journey?
- How do we need Jesus to feed us at this moment on our faith journey? [Pause.]
As to why Bladen and Renee are receiving the sacraments in a different order that’s too long a story to cover tonight. Renee is receiving them as we did it before the reign of Charlemagne, and Bladen is doing it as we’ve done it since 1910.
On behalf of the entire St. Austin community, I welcome you to becoming fully initiated members of the Catholic Church! Everyone else, there is something you need to do tonight, more than usual, to make them truly feel freed from their sins, risen from their graves, and welcomed into Christ’s body: we need as many of you as possible – even the introverts who usually go to bed at 9 pm – to stay for at least a few minutes after Mass ends tonight. Please introduce yourself to Braden and the ten soon-to-be neophytes. And to the eleven of you, even though we might not give you as many hugs as we would in a non-pandemic year, please know that we welcome you with hope and with joy and with love!
On this beautiful spring night, we celebrate once again what is timeless: Jesus Christ’s resurrection has revealed God’s ultimate triumph over sin and death. We are the Body of Christ Our Lord, risen from the grave this night, our savior yesterday, today, and forever. How will our timeless God change us tonight and every subsequent night of our lives? This holy night of Christ’s Passover “washes guilt away, restores lost innocence, and bring mourners joy. It casts out hatred, brings us peace, and humbles earthly pride.” May we go forward, forever changed, more fully aware of the abundance of the gifts – of the graces – that God has showered upon us!
Podcast photo credit: Mazur/catholicnews.org.uk via Flickr/CC BY 2.0