Easter Vigil Homily
Cathedral of Mary Our Queen
April 19, 2025
Amid the pageantry of this solemn liturgy, let us withdraw, if only for a moment, into that inner room, our heart of hearts, a room too often unvisited. There, let us contemplate the hope we celebrate on this night of nights.
Hope was kindled, if only symbolically, as we lit the new fire. As its flames leapt into the night sky, they pierced the darkness, as if to pierce the very mystery of sin and death.
We entered the Cathedral by the light of a single candle – a great candle to be sure, like the pillar of fire that led the Israelites of old . . . yet it was a tiny, flickering flame, scarcely a match for darkness and wind. But with hope undimmed, the deacon cried out, “Light of Christ” and in the same hope we responded, “Thanks be to God”. This we did three times as the light slowly spread from candle to candle until the darkness of the Cathedral was overcome with the glow of hope.
In that glow, the Church sang to her Lord a song, the Exultet, a love song, really, of the hope that is ours in his Death and Resurrection. “This is the night!” was the incessant refrain of that song, the night “when Christ broke the prison-bars of death and rose victorious from the underworld.”
Then, in semi-darkness, we settled in as the Word of God was proclaimed in its fullness. We traced the history of salvation from the creation’s first light onward. Hope flickered as God’s good creation was marred by sin but began to glow more and more brightly as God chose a people for himself, and over the centuries, tutored them by means of the Law and Prophets. With each subsequent Scripture reading, the light grew brighter until the reason for our hope burst the confines of the Old Testament so as to shine forth in the New: “…Christ, raised from the dead dies no more. Death no longer has power over him” (Rom 6:9).
One word summed up our response to this mystery: “Alleluia!” Yet, as one author comments, “Alleluia” is not “Hurrah! We won!” Rather, it is a word of joy and a word of wonderment. And it is a word first sung tentatively and inexpertly by me, your celebrant. Yet, like the spread of the flickering light of a single candle and the increasing brightness of God’s Word through the centuries, so too did our Alleluias swell, becoming a chorus of joy, as we found ourselves standing beside the amazed women who had come to inspect Jesus’ tomb and did not find him there. Just as this Cathedral resounds with joy and hope, so let the inner room of our heart of hearts resound! What happened then, we encounter now, namely, the Resurrection of the One who is our Lord and Savior. The bodily Resurrection of Christ happened at a point in time, but a point in time that forever opens our horizons to eternity.
As if to embody our hope, there are among us are 25 women and men, some from the Cathedral parish and others from UMBC. In the grace of the Holy Spirit, they have caught sight of the hope that drew all of us to this Cathedral tonight: ‘Christ in us our hope of glory!’ (Col 1:27). Following a period of purification and enlightenment, they are here to baptized, confirmed, received into the Church, and to partake with us in the crucified and risen Body and Blood of Christ. In them, the words of St. Paul to the Romans come alive: “We were indeed buried with him through baptism into his death, so that just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might live in newness of life” (Rom 6: 4). Your presence in our midst, dear catechumens and candidates, fills with hope the hearts of those of us who are life-long Catholics. Emboldened by your example, we shall renew our baptismal promises.
With our hearts glowing still more brightly, we shall then celebrate anew the mystery of the Lord’s death and resurrection by which we are redeemed. In receiving the Body of Christ, we shall taste his victory over sin and death. In receiving the Blood Christ, we shall be washed clean. Dear friends: in the joy and mystery of this night of nights, may we “grasp and rightly understand in what font [we] have been washed, by whose Spirit [we] have been reborn, and by whose blood [we] have been redeemed.” Christ is Risen! Alleluia! Alleluia!