Easter Vigil
I know someone well who is very smart. His mind is a well-oiled machine. When faced with different data points, he can put it together to make sense, and anticipate challenges and/or opportunities, and adjust expectations or actions as necessary. Because of this, he is very gifted at administration. When it comes to friendships: he struggles a bit more. Because his mind tries to get to why a friend didn’t tell him something, or why did a friend use the words he did, and is that friend trying to communicate something subtly that he doesn’t want to say directly. And then anxiety kicks in and his brain goes into overdrive trying to make sense of it all, and often reading into things that are much more innocent.
I try to help him by reminding him to consider other facts that he knows to be true that will put his mind at ease. I encourage him to expand the amount of data that his mind is analyzing to include more positive facts and input, and not just the negative ones to which his brain so easily goes. While it takes work, seeing the bigger picture can help calm his fears of rejection and realize that he really does have good friends who aren’t looking to get rid of him.
Maybe you don’t have an analytical mind, but with what has happened over the past few days, starting on Holy Thursday, there’s a lot to process. In this one grand liturgy that began with the Mass of the Lord’s Supper, we entered into the model of service in the washing of feet; the institution of the priesthood and the Eucharist at the Last Supper; and the agony in the garden at the altar of repose. On Good Friday we joined with Christ in the fruits of the betrayal by Judas and our God, Savior, and hope dying in the most horrible way possible. Earlier today we just waited, joining with the apostles who had all likely lost hope and were wondering what they should do now that their Master was in a tomb. And now, tonight, we celebrate that hope did not die, but that God raised His Son from the dead and conquered sin and death forever. If we take these events seriously, they should make us wonder what God did and what it all means. We may not get anxiety, but it calls for a deeper reflection on more facts, more data to understand God’s plan.
And that’s why we had all these readings tonight. We heard about how God created life to be good and an expression of His love. We heard about Abraham almost sacrificing his beloved son, but God providing a ram to take Isaac’s place. We heard about the Egyptians being put to death in water, which was also the way that God’s chosen people were saved: through water. We heard the Prophet Isaiah talk about how God would take us back, though we had abandoned Him, and how God would give us the good things of life and renew His covenant with us. The Prophet Baruch encouraged us to follow the ways of the Lord and so receive light and favor. And we heard God tell the Prophet Ezekiel that God would give new life to His people, cleanse them from their sins, and lead them back to their promised inheritance.
These are all realities we all need to hear tonight, to better understand God’s plan. But especially you, Dylan and Isaiah, need to hear these as you prepare to become Catholic through your baptism, confirmation, and reception of the Holy Eucharist. You will go through water which will destroy all that is fallen in you, but will give you new life in Christ. God will send His Spirit upon you to help you live the new law of grace. And God will prepare for you the “rich fare” of the Eucharist, the food which is truly the Body and Blood of Christ, which will help join you to Christ in the closest union you can have with anyone while on earth. Your stories–what brought you to this holy night, your path of conversion–now becomes a small part of the larger story of salvation, by which God gives us a greater gift even than the Garden of Eden, which He created for us, the people He has made in His image. God made Eden for Adam and Eve, who lost it by their disobedience. God opens heaven to you, greater than any earthly paradise, and you can receive it by your life of obedience to God.
So do not only consider the drama of the past few days. Do not fix your minds on what causes anxiety. Consider all of salvation history, and how God, who created you in love, has redeemed you in love, and now welcomes you into His family of love, the Catholic Church, and now shows you the straight and narrow way to enter into eternal love in heaven.
