Easter Vigil Retreat THE WORD In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with

God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God; all things were made through him, and without him was not anything made that was made. In him was life, and the life was the light of men. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it. ~John 1:1-5 In the beginning, when God created the heavens and the earth. The earth was without form and void, and darkness was upon the face of the deep; and the Spirit of God was moving over the face of the waters. And God said, Let there be light; ~Genesis 1:1-2 O Lord, how manifold are thy works! In wisdom hast thou made them all; the earth is full of thy creatures May my meditation be pleasing to him, for I rejoice in the Lord Bless the Lord, O my soul! Praise the Lord! ~Psalm 104, 24, 34, 35b Tonight, Most blessed of all nights, we will here 9 readings from the Word of God: 7 from the Old Testament, an Epistle Reading from the Letter of St. Paul to the Romans, and a Reading from the Gospel According to Luke. From that statement we should recognize that tonights Mass is different from all other Masses celebrated in the Liturgical Year. Tonight is not just about living Our Faith as Catholics, but about Our, all of us, Our Salvation. That is the common theme that runs through the extended Liturgy of the Word this evening. Salvation, or salvi in Latin. This morning, I am going to read several snippets from Easter Vigil Liturgy of the Word to give you a perspective of what is to come. We do this together because we are preparing for one of the most, if not The most memorable Liturgies in our Catholic lives. However, many will take the nine readings every Holy Saturday to prepare for the Easter Vigil Liturgy. If you recall, one of the purposes of Lent is to be in solidarity with those preparing to receive the Sacraments of Initiation. We, with the whole Church, reflect then on Our Salvation History as given to us in the Word of God.

We take ourselves to the Garden of Eden. Eve has taken of the forbidden fruit and has shared it with her husband, Adam. Then the Lord God said to the woman, What is this that you have done? The woman said, The serpent beguiled me, and I ate [the apple]. To Adam he said, cursed is the ground because of you; in toil you shall eat of it all the days of your life; thorns and thistles it shall bring forth to you; and you shall eat the plants of the field. In the sweat of your face you shall eat bread till you return to the ground, for out of it you were taken; you are dust, and to dust you shall return. Then the Lord God said, Behold, the man has become like one of us, knowing good and evil; and now, lest he put forth his hand and take also of the tree of life, and eat, and live for ever therefore the Lord God sent him forth from the garden of Eden, to till the ground from which he was taken. ~Genesis 3:13, 17b-19, 22-23 And so sin enters into the world. It was not so in the beginning, Adam and Eve freely lived with God, dwelt in His Garden, and conversed with God. There was a relationship with God like a good friend, a best friend. But Adam and Eve made a choice, to partake of the Tree of Knowledge. The CCC #388 labels Adam as the source of sin and in #390 we read that there is a certainty of faith that the whole of human history is marked by the original fault freely committed by our first parents. In the choice made by Adam and Eve years ago, we are all marked with Original Sin and susceptible to sin. The relationship that once existed was severed. No more would man walk and converse with God as we once did in the Garden. In the Exultet though, we hear a line that many have struggled with. Because in Adams sinfulness we gain Jesus Christ. O happy fault, O necessary sin of Adam, which gained for us so great a Redeemer. Now our relationship with God is not confined to friendship, we are family. God took on the nature of man that we become His adopted daughters and sons. Through the salvation of God, we are in closer union with God than in the beginning. As apparent from the size of the Old Testament to the New Testament, we know that Jesus did not come immediately after the fall of man. In fact, many years and many events transpired between

the fall of man and the Resurrection which we will celebrate on this Most Blessed of Nights! The first reading tonight was in my opening, the Creation of the Earth; I limited it to the first day. The second reading takes us to Abraham, to whom God is about to bestow His people. God put Abraham to the test, and said to him Abraham! And he said, Here am I. He said, Take your son, your only son Isaac, whom you love, and go to the land of Moriah, and offer him there as a burnt offering upon one of the mountains of which I shall tell you. On the third day Abraham lifted up his eyes and saw the place afar off When they came to the place of which God had told him, Abraham built an altar there, and laid the wood in order, and bound Isaac his son, and laid him on the altar upon the wood [God] said, Do not lay your hand on the lad or do anything to him; for now I know that you fear God, seeing you have not withheld your son, your only son, from me Because you have done this I will indeed bless you, and I will multiply your descendants as the stars of heaven and as the sand which is on the seashore. ~Genesis 22:1-2, 4, 9, 12, 16b, 17a The CCC #1819 teaches us that Christian hope takes up and fulfills the hope of the chosen people which has its origin and model in the hope of Abraham, who was blessed abundantly by the promises of God fulfilled in Isaac, and who was purified by the test of the sacrifice. Hoping against hope, he believed, and thus became the father of many nations. The CCC #2572 then boldly states that this passage is a direct foreshadow of Jesus Passion, the father of believers [Abraham] is conformed to the likeness of the Father who will not spare his own Son but will deliver him up for us all. This is Gods will for each of us, to be conformed to the likeness of God, to be willing to sacrifice that which is most dear to our hearts for the glory of God and the salvation of man. We, the People of God, have not always been obedient to the plan of God. We fast-forward to desert, where Moses is leading the People out of exile in Egypt. Moses comes to the banks of the Red Sea and seeing no passage, pleads to God.

The Lord said to Moses, Why do you cry to me? Tell the people of Israel to go forward. Lift up your rod, and stretch out your hand over the sea and divide it, that the people of Israel may go on dry ground through the sea Then Moses stretched out his hand over the sea; and the Lord drove the sea back by a strong east wind all night, and made the sea dry land, and the waters were divided and the people of Israel went into the midst of the sea on dry ground, the waters being a wall to them on their right hand and on their left. The Egyptians pursued The Lord clogging their chariot wheels so that they drove heavily; and the Egyptians said, Let us flee from before Israel; for the Lord fights for them against the Egyptians. Then the Lord said to Moses, Stretch out your hand over the sea, that the water may come back upon the Egyptians, upon their chariots, and upon their horseman. So Moses stretched forth his hand over the sea, and the sea retuned to its wonted flow when the morning appeared; and the Egyptians fled into it, and the Lord routed the Egyptians in the midst of the sea. The waters returned and covered the chariots and the horseman and all the host of Pharaoh that had followed them into the sea; not so much as one of them remained. ~Exodus 14:15-16, 21-23a, 26-27 I will sing to the Lord, for he has triumphed gloriously; the horse and his rider he has thrown into the sea. The Lord is my strength and my song, and he has become my salvation; this is my God, and I will praise him, my fathers God, and I will exalt him. ~Exodus 15:1b-2 We see the Exodus of the people of Israel relived in the life of Christ. In the Gospel of Matthew (cf. 2:15) we hear of Mary, Joseph, and Jesus flight to Egypt, an angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream and said, Rise, take the child and his mother, and flee to Egypt, and remain there until I tell you; for Herod is about to search for the child to destroy him. And he rose and took the child and his mother by night, and departed to Egypt, and remained there until the death of Herod. This was to fulfill what the Lord had spoken by the prophet, Out of Egypt have I called my son (Matthew 2:13b-15). At the moment desired by God, Jesus miraculous returns with His mother and father to the land of Nazareth, so that the prophesy may be fulfilled, He shall be called a Nazarene (Matthew 2:23b).

In the midst of a sinful world, that has contained Babylon, Sodom and Gomorra, the Great Flood that reestablished a covenant with God, Cain and Abel, we begin to hear of Gods Redemption directly: The Holy One of Israel is your Redeemer, the God of the whole earth he is called [Then God said,] For a brief moment I forsook you, but with great compassion I will gather you. In overflowing wrath for a moment I hid my face from you, but with everlasting love I will have compassion on you, says the Lord, your Redeemer O afflicted one, storm-tossed, and not comforted, behold... All your sons shall be taught by the Lord, and great shall be the prosperity of your sons. ~Isaiah 54:5b, 7-8, 11a, 13 In the midst of Gods wrath and forsaking His people, we begin to hear of Gods compassion, everlasting Love. We begin to see the Love that hung upon the Cross. God articulates our affliction, anxiety, and restlessness. And God gives us hope, a joy that comes in the morning (cf. Psalm 30:5b), that our sons may prosper, that we His people will see something better. He begins to speak to us in the depths of our souls: Every one who thirsts, come to the waters Incline your ear, and come to me; hear, that your soul may live... ~Isaiah 55:1a, 3a With joy you will draw water from the wells of salvation. ~Isaiah 12: 3 A new heart I will put within you; and I will take out of your flesh the heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh. And I will put my spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes and be careful to observe my ordinances. You shall dwell in the land which I gave to your fathers; and you shall be my people, and I will be your God. ~Ezekiel 36:16-19, 22-23a, 26-28 In His call to each of us, God speaks of what is to come. We will drink the Cup of Salvation. Water from the side of Christ, wash me (St. Ignatius). Our Salvation will be transformational, turning harden stones into life giving hearts. We in the Psalms then, respond to God. Recall, Salvation is about our relationship with Christ. We are called

to speak to Him. And in our prayer, we learn that God wants our hearts to be contrite, to be remorseful. Restore to me the joy of thy salvation, and uphold me with a willing spirit. Then I will teach transgressors thy ways, and sinners will return to thee For thou hast no delight in sacrifice; were I to give a burnt offering, thou wouldst not be pleased. The sacrifice acceptable to God is a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart, O God, thou wilt not despise. ~Psalm 51:12-13, 16-17 ############################################## After the sabbath, as the first day of the week was dawning, Mary Magdalene and the other Mary came to see the tomb. And behold, there was a great earthquake; for an angel of the Lord descended from heaven, approached, rolled back the stone, and sat upon it. His appearance was like lightning and his clothing was white as snow. The guards were shaken with fear of him and became like dead men. Then the angel said to the women in reply, Do not be afraid! I know that you are seeking Jesus the crucified. He is not here, for he has been raised just as he said. Come and see the place where he lay. Then go quickly and tell his disciples, He has been raised from the dead, and he is going before you to Galilee; there you will see him. Behold, I have told you. Then they went away quickly from the tomb, fearful yet overjoyed, and ran to announce this to his disciples. And behold, Jesus met them on their way and greeted them. They approached, embraced his feet, and did him homage. Then Jesus said to them, Do not be afraid. Go tell my brothers to go to Galilee, and there they will see me. ~Matthew 28:1-10 Behold, God is my salvation; I will trust, and will not be afraid; for the Lord God is my strength and my song, and he has become my salvation. ~Isaiah 12:2 Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, so that as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life For we know that Christ being raised from the dead will never die again;

death no longer has dominion over him. The death he died he died to sin, once for all, but the life he lives he lives to God. So you also must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus. ~Romans 6:3-4, 9-11 O give thanks to the Lord, for he is good; his steadfast love endures for ever!... The stone which the builders rejected has become the cornerstone. This is the Lords doing; it is marvelous in our eyes. ~Psalm 118:1, 22-23