Our People

Homily for Easter Vigil

Our Lady Star of the Sea Church, Watson’s Bay

By Most Rev. Anthony Fisher OP
Auxiliary Bishop of Sydney
22/3/2008

What is the darkest place you have ever been? I remember the confessional at St Francis Church, Melbourne, provided especially for priests in the Blessed Sacrament Monastery. It was like a bank – safe, secure, private and anonymous. You couldn’t see your hand in front of you. I had a similar experience deep underground at Jenolan caves, when the guide turned off the lights. The darkness was so deep it was hard to comprehend and very disorienting.

In the first reading we heard the story of the Genesis of Creation. In a time before time, before God created the heavens and the earth, there was a formless void, a deep darkness over the dark deep. And God said “Let there be light” and there was light. So God’s first creative act was a big bang of energy in that darkest place that is outer space, after which time and matter and life would come.

So too at the dawn of the New Creation. Deep in that darkest of places – that ‘outer space’ within the earth, the tomb – there was a similiar explosion of light, a big bang of energy after which would come a new sense of time and history, a new meaning for all earthly matter, and eternal life to replace merely mortal life. Though no-one was there to witness either eruption of light, both are revealed to us; and at the second, there were people nearby. So Luke tells us of the discovery “at first sign of dawn” of two shining angels, so brilliant the blinded women “lowered their eyes” (Lk 24:1-12).

The Easter Vigil is the climax of the liturgical year, the greatest of Christian ceremonies, and it is bathed in light. The Easter fire, the entry of the Paschal candle and the singing of the Exultet all celebrate the return of divine light to the darkness of human history and to the hearts of every abandoned soul. It is the illumination of creation and of the Church. So the Exultet tells Mother Earth to rejoice in her “shining splendour”, the reflected glory of her bright king: “Christ has conquered! Glory fills you! Darkness vanishes for ever!” Next, the Easter song tells Mother Church to exult in glory, for she too luxuriates in the shining light of her Risen Saviour. Thirdly, the song calls each of us, holding candles sharing the light of Paschal Candle, to join in song and prayer. The light is for all creation, all the Church and all of us. This is the Night promised from days of old in Holy Scriptures, when “night will be as clear as day. It will become my light, my joy!”

Eusebius records that in Fourth Century Milan, the Emperor Constantine “transformed the night of the sacred Vigil into the brilliance of day, by lighting throughout the whole city pillars of wax, while burning lamps illuminated every part, so that that mystic night was rendered brighter than the brightest daylight.” For those early Christians it must have been especially meaningful that after dark centuries of terrible persecution they could now step out into the public light to celebrate Christ’s Resurrection and theirs. In other places the Paschal candle sometimes assumed massive proportions. In Rome it was the size and mass of a man. In Westminster and Canterbury it was 300 pounds in weight. In Norwich and Durham the candle was so high, special apertures had to be cut into the high vaulted ceiling to forestall fire. In 19th Century Seville an eight metre Paschal candle sat upon a several metre high pedestal and weighed the best part of a tonne. The candle was lit by climbing a ship’s mast mounted with steps and a platform. Here at Our Lady Star of the Sea Parish our candle is more modest in scale, but light we have in proper abundance, not just to celebrate this Night of Nights, but to reflect the fact that we need that light every bit as much as those ancients did.

Many are the times in our lives when we crave some light, some enlightenment for our murky minds, some warmth for our cold hearts, some radiance for our tired souls. There are many times in our lives when we need ‘resurrecting’, some ‘rebirth from the dead’. These are small resurrections, perhaps, from the darkness of lacking inspiration, or from depression or loneliness, from sickness or suffering. Many are the times we pray to be raised out of our tombs. And just as each sickness and grief is a portent of that deep darkness into which we will all ultimately enter at our deaths, so each recovery and joy is a promise of something better beyond the grave, possible by God’s grace. How often in our lives have we experienced some gift of light and warmth which has come as pure grace, from outside ourselves? Each of these is, of course, an omen of that great rebirth into the Light which is to come at our Resurrection.

Tonight our parish is especially privileged to celebrate the Baptism of Marianne Sainty and her Confirmation along with Timothy Geoghegan. The Easter Vigil was from ancient times the preferred time for Baptism because it is a celebration of a person being Eastered, joined to Christ in his Life, Death, Passion and Resurrection. As St Paul said in our Epistle: “When we were baptised in Christ Jesus, we were baptised into his death… we went into tomb with him and joined him in death; so that as Christ was raised from the dead, we too might live a new life”. (Rom 6:3-4)

At baptism ordinary human beings experience that big bang of light that occurred at the Creation of the Universe and at its Recreation at Christ’s Resurrection. To see one of our friends, Marianne, who has long cared for her godmother Louise and been befriended by her other godparent Rosalie, both stalwarts of our parish, is a great joy. We join the earth and the Church in rejoicing with and in the Risen Lord. We assure you of the welcome of this parish, of the universal Church, and of the whole communion of Saints.

A great joy, but a lesson, also, to us all. Your baptism, and your confirmation with young Timothy, is testimony to the action of God’s light in your life and ours. The Exultet, once again, explains what this night should mean for you and so for us. This is our Passover feast, when God “first saved our fathers, freed the people of Israel from their slavery, and led them dry-shod through the sea.” So too, this night, Marianne is washed clean of sin by baptism and restored to grace and innocence. Without Adam’s sin we would not have needed Baptism and so might never have had a Redeemer; and so the Exultet calls the fall a “happy fault”, a “necessary sin of Adam, which gained for us so great a Redeemer!”. “Night truly blessed, when heaven is wedded to earth, and man is reconciled with God.” Alleluia! He is truly Risen!