VATICAN CITY, 23 APRIL 2011 (VIS) - At 9:00 pm this evening, Benedict XVI presided over the solemn Paschal Vigil, which began with the blessing of the new flame in the atrium of the Vatican basilica, the processional entry into St. Peter's with the paschal candle, and the singing of the Exultet. During the baptismal liturgy, the Holy Father administered the sacrament of Christian initiation to six catechumens from various countries.
"The liturgical celebration of the Easter Vigil makes use of two eloquent signs", said the Pope during his homily. "First there is the fire that becomes light ... The second sign is water... Yet these great signs of creation, light and water, are not the only constituent elements of the liturgy of the Easter Vigil. Another essential feature is the ample encounter with the words of sacred Scripture that it provides".
The Holy Father explained that "The Church wishes to offer us a panoramic view of whole trajectory of salvation history, starting with creation, passing through the election and the liberation of Israel to the testimony of the prophets by which this entire history is directed ever more clearly towards Jesus Christ".
"At the Easter Vigil", he continued, "the journey along the paths of sacred Scripture begins with the account of creation. This is the liturgy's way of telling us that the creation story is itself a prophecy. It is not information about the external processes by which the cosmos and man himself came into being. ... Now, one might ask: is it really important to speak also of creation during the Easter Vigil? ... To omit the creation would be to misunderstand the very history of God with men, to diminish it, to lose sight of its true order of greatness".
Benedict XVI emphasised that "the Church is not some kind of association that concerns itself with man's religious needs but is limited to that objective. No, she brings man into contact with God and thus with the source of all things. Therefore we relate to God as Creator, and so we have a responsibility for creation".
"The creation account tells us, then, that the world is a product of creative Reason. Hence it tells us that, far from there being an absence of reason and freedom at the origin of all things, the source of everything is creative Reason, love, and freedom".
The Pope remarked that "if man were merely a random product of evolution in some place on the margins of the universe, then his life would make no sense or might even be a chance of nature. But no, Reason is there at the beginning: creative, divine Reason".
He recalled that "the Sabbath is the seventh day of the week. ... But something quite unprecedented happened in the nascent Church: the place of the Sabbath, the seventh day, was taken by the first day. As the day of the liturgical assembly, it is the day for encounter with God through Jesus Christ who as the Risen Lord encountered his followers on the first day, Sunday, after they had found the tomb empty".
He continued, "This encounter happens afresh at every celebration of the Eucharist, when the Lord enters anew into the midst of his disciples and gives himself to them, allows himself, so to speak, to be touched by them, sits down at table with them. This change is utterly extraordinary, considering that the Sabbath, the seventh day seen as the day of encounter with God, is so profoundly rooted in the Old Testament".
Benedict XVI affirmed that "the first day, according to the Genesis account, is the day on which creation begins. Now it was the day of creation in a new way, it had become the day of the new creation. We celebrate the first day. And in so doing we celebrate God the Creator and his creation. Yes, we believe in God, the Creator of heaven and earth. And we celebrate the God who was made man, who suffered, died, was buried and rose again".
He concluded, "We celebrate the definitive victory of the Creator and of his creation. We celebrate this day as the origin and the goal of our existence. We celebrate it because now, thanks to the risen Lord, it is definitively established that reason is stronger than unreason, truth stronger than lies, love stronger than death. We celebrate the first day because we know that the black line drawn across creation does not last forever".
BXVI-HOLY WEEK/ VIS 20110427 (760)
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