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April 20, 2025On this night we celebrate the foundation of our faith: Christ is risen from the dead. Death could not hold him back. Christ with his death destroyed death forever and rose again to free us all, the entire humanity, from the fear of death forever. On this night we celebrate our liberation; we celebrate our redemption.
The Exultet, the Hymn that we sang in the beginning has invited us to joy and exultation for the triumph of Christ. The lighted Easter candle reminds us that Christ is the light of the world. The darkness of sin no longer has the last word on our life.
The word of God is offered to us in abundance on this luminous night. And it has made us retrace the history of our salvation, beginning from the creation to liberation of the ancient people of God from the slavery in Egypt, from the prophetic announcement of the Messiah to the proclamation of the resurrection of Christ. Easter is the ultimate meaning of creation. In fact, God did not create the world for death but for eternal life that we have now received in the risen Christ.
Dear brothers and sisters, we were not born to die but to live forever and death is now only a passage that leads us to the definitive new life in Christ. Risen Christ always surprises us, as he surprised the women who ran to the tomb to honor the body of Christ. Christ surprised the apostles, Christ surprised the disciples, Christ also surprises us today and calls us to follow him; he is always at work among us.
St. Paul in his letter to the Romans reminds us that the risen Christ does not die anymore and for this reason he invites us: "in that way, you too must consider yourselves to be dead to sin but alive for God in Christ Jesus". Here is the key question for us today as we celebrate Easter. The resurrection of Christ does not only concern the world to come but changes the way of living all circumstances of life even today. That means we are called to live already in the present as resurrected people.
But how can we participate now in the life of the risen Christ? There is a a sacrament that makes us participants in the death and resurrection of Christ: our baptism. For this reason, tonight during this mass, the water is blessed sprinkled over us reminding us of our baptism, to revive in us the awareness that we are baptized in Christ and that we are reborn into new life; we belong to Jesus. For this reason, during this celebration we will renew our baptismal promises, that we pronounced on the day of baptism. Furthermore, following a very ancient tradition, some of our faithful will soon receive baptism and become Christians, participants in the resurrection of Christ.
Dear faithful, baptism is not just an event that we experienced at the beginning of our life or for those who will receive it today, a specific moment in their life. Certainly, for these new believers who are reborn in Christ, this day will be unforgettable. And it is right that we remember the day of our baptism and celebrate it as our birthday. But even more we must be aware of this moment, every day of our life for baptism defines us as children of God, as new creatures. On Easter day we remember that Jesus is risen, and we as baptized, have been made participants of a life, risen in Christ.
As baptized, we are called to form a single body, to be the mystical body of Christ. The risen Christ unites us to him and unites us among ourselves. We know well that we are so different in language, nation and culture: but baptism unites us all in Christ. We are called to bear witness to Christ through a new way of living in every circumstance of life. Being baptized in the risen Christ leads us to live the great Christian hope in every circumstance of life, in the family, at work, at school, with friends and in the society.
Finally, we celebrate this Easter in the Jubilee Year of the Lord 2025. Celebrating the resurrection of Christ, we understand what it means to be pilgrims of hope. We live on this earth as migrants, but we do not place our hope in idols, in power, in money, in career, but in the risen Christ. For we have been freed from the blackmail of things that pass away. Christ is our hope. Therefore, we walk together as children of God, loving one another in the name of Jesus.
I conclude by quoting Pope Francis whom we remember with particular affection on this night praying for him and for his health: “Jesus is our Pasch. He is the One who brings us from darkness into light, who is bound to us forever, who rescues us from the abyss of sin and death and draws us into the radiant realm of forgiveness and eternal life. Let us look up to him! Let us welcome Jesus, the God of life, into our lives, and today once again say “yes” to him. Then no stone will block the way to our hearts, no tomb will suppress the joy of life, no failure will doom us to despair. Let us lift our eyes to him, the Risen Lord, and press forward in the certainty that, against the obscure backdrop of our failed hopes and our deaths, the eternal life that he came to bring is even now present in our midst”.
May Our Lady of Arabia, help us live every day in the joy of the new life given to us by the risen Lord.
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