Easter Vigil

a reflection by Ken Canedo

There is a sense of
incompleteness
on Holy Saturday,
a strangeness.

Pensively, I walk
through this day,
uncertain.

Two emotional nights
exhaust me:

Thursday’s mandate to wash feet.
Bread and wine, to remember him.
Intensive prayer, alone in his Eucharistic presence.

Friday’s stark cross
on which hung the Savior
of the world.

What do these things mean to me?

I think about his disciples
on that tumultuous first Holy Week,
going from Palm Sunday hosannas
to the shocking finality of his death.

How could it end this way?
What would become of them?
Were they now guilty by association?
Would they meet the same crucified fate?

I picture that primal Saturday
as a day of despair.

Something needs to break through
this void,
this emptiness,
this darkness.

Liturgy of the Easter Vigil (scroll down)

Readings of the Easter Vigil

“Rice Catholics” – the RCIA Journey 
from spiritandsong.com  
 

Just Updated: Pope Francis’ Easter Vigil homily for 2014 

Dear Brothers and Sisters,

The Gospel of the resurrection of Jesus Christ begins with the journey of the women to the tomb at dawn on the day after the Sabbath.  They go to the tomb to honour the body of the Lord, but they find it open and empty.  A mighty angel says to them: “Do not be afraid!” (Mt 28:5) and orders them to go and tell the disciples: “He has been raised from the dead, and indeed he is going ahead of you to Galilee” (v. 7).  The women quickly depart and on the way Jesus himself meets them and says: “Do not fear; go and tell my brothers to go to Galilee; there they will see me” (v. 10).

After the death of the Master, the disciples had scattered; their faith had been utterly shaken, everything seemed over, all their certainties had crumbled and their hopes had died.  But now that message of the women, incredible as it was, came to them like a ray of light in the darkness. . .

Click here to read whole homily.