Saturday, April 11, 2020

Easter Vigil - Holy Saturday Night – April 11th, 2020 (For you at Home)

Easter Vigil - Holy Saturday Night – April 11th, 2020
(For you at Home).
Due to the coronavirus pandemic, the Holy week liturgies which we feature here, are specially approved shortened and adapted liturgies for this time of difficulty. You will notice that some options are not featured this year. But we are still united in Spirit, in our Lord.

(Our apologies for a technical glitch in an earlier version of this link. It has now been fixed). Bless you and Happy Easter to everyone!

Image -Shutterstock stock illustration ID: 569517097. Easter candle - Abstract artistic pastel style Christian religious background. By Thoom

Easter Proclamation: (The Exsultet)
Old Testament Readings and Psalms
• Exodus 14:10-31; 15:20-21 and Exodus 15:1b-13, 17-18
• Isaiah 55:1-11 and Isaiah 12:2-6
New Testament Reading and Psalm
• Romans 6:3-11 and Psalm 114
- Gospel- Matthew 28:1-10
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Please listen to my audio recordings of the readings, prayers and reflections for the Easter Vigil 2020 by clicking this link here: https://soundcloud.com/user-633212303/faith-hope-and-love-ep-221-holy-saturday-vigil-in-absence-of-assembly-2020/s-rF23WEoU6ra (EPISODE:221 )
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The homily will be given by Surfers Paradise Parish Priest, Fr Peter Dillon.

Easter Vigil 2020

The famous Welsh poet Dylan Thomas wrote a poem when his father was going blind and nearing death. It was a protest against the double darkness. Its last verse runs: "And you, my father, there on the sad height, Curse, bless, me now with your fierce tears, I pray. Do not go gentle into that goodnight. Rage, rage, against the dying of the light."

We can approach death differently because of this night. On this most holy night, we, Christian people, proclaim a song about the rising of the light. Jesus, the light of the world, was done to death, and in that death, the light truly died. A beautiful life ended, a good man died, death and darkness seemed to triumph. The hopes of all Jesus' followers were dashed, and, of all those who mourned his passing, none was more bereft than Mary of Magdala. Her life had been a struggle between beauty and tragedy. Tragedy had once again won, it would seem.

However, while it was still dark, as Easter morning approached, there is a glimmer of light. The light that everyone thought was extinguished re-ignites. Christ the light is risen. After the angel messenger has spoken to the women at the tomb, Jesus appears first to Mary of Magdala. She, the woman who has known such tragedy in her life, now becomes the first witness to the resurrection of the Lord.

This Easter, pilgrims from all over the world will this time sit close to the empty tomb. They shall do so within their own homes, within their own local communities. But they will remember the empty tomb first visited by Mary Magdalen, Peter and John. They will join that timeless queue reaching back to the first believers on Easter morning and stretching to the end of time, those who can accept in their hearts - He is risen just as he said! The one who lay stilled in death between Good Friday and Easter Day 'now lives no more to die'. They will hail him as the great trailblazer of human destiny: the conqueror of death, the one who more than any other assures us that we come from God, that our earthly journeys are journeys to a destination, voyages to a port, that someone and something awaits us at the end, that God is there, that heaven is there and that he, our risen Lord, awaits us.

The joy of the resurrection is a joy for all people, especially announced to those whose lives have known sorrow, disappointment, betrayal, suffering, hopelessness. We do not rage against the dying of the hope, we rejoice, rejoice, at the rising of the light!

 
Our Christian hope is not a thoughtless hope; it is a hope despite everything to the contrary. Through viruses, tsunamis, scandals, children dying, personal tragedies, and imperfect Church, wars and rumours of wars - And the yet the message of this day is that we can still trust our God who raised Jesus from the grave.

In the early 1920s, when Communism was in the ascendancy in Russia, a Communist leader called Bukharin was sent from Moscow to Kiev to address a rally. For nearly an hour he used every anti-God argument he could muster and then turned to abuse and ridicule of the Christian faith till it seemed that the whole structure of belief was in ruins. At the end, there was a deathly silence. Then he invited questions from the floor. Quietly one man rose to his feet. He was a priest of the Russian Orthodox Church. Standing beside Bukharin, he turned his face to the people and simply addressed them with the ancient liturgical greeting: 'Christ is risen'. Instantly the vast crowd rose to its feet, and the reply came thundering back like the crashing of breakers against a cliff face: 'He is risen indeed'. Bukharin remained silent. There was nothing he could say in the face of such strong faith. When every argument against God has been marshalled, there remains the colossal truth that Jesus is risen from the dead. He is Risen indeed!


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References:
Fr Peter Dillon PP.

We acknowledge the beautiful chanting of the Exsultet (the Easter proclamation ), the Gloria and the Easter Alleluia; chants from the Roman Missal edition 3, recorded by 
www.CCwatershed.org media COPYRIGHT @ 2018 CORPUS CHRISTI WATERSHED especially at http://www.ccwatershed.org/blog/2012/feb/23/video-recording-paschal-proclamation-exsultet-plus/ and also specifically at http://www.ccwatershed.org/media/audio/14/12/08/19-00-19_0.mp3 

Image -Shutterstock stock illustration ID: 569517097. Easter candle - Abstract artistic pastel style Christian religious background. By Thoom
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Archive of homilies and reflections: http://homilycatholic.blogspot.com.au
To contact Fr. Paul, please email: 
paulwkelly68@gmail.com

To listen to my weekly homily audio podcast, please click this link here.
NB - It is often a week or so Ahead: 
https://soundcloud.com/user-633212303/tracks

You are welcome to subscribe to Fr Paul's homily mail-out by sending an email to this address:
paulkellyreflections+subscribe@googlegroups.com


Further information relating to the audio productions linked to this Blog:
"Faith, Hope and Love - Christian worship and reflection" - Led by Rev Paul Kelly

Prayers and chants — Roman Missal, 3rd edition, © 2010, The International Commission on English in the liturgy. (ICEL)

Scriptures - New Revised Standard Version: © 1989, and 2009 by the NCC-USA. (National Council of Churches of Christ - USA)

"The Psalms" ©1963, 2009, The Grail - Collins publishers.

Prayers of the Faithful - " Together we pray" by Robert Borg'. E.J. Dwyer, Publishers, (1993). (Sydney Australia).

{ "Mass In Honour of St. Ralph Sherwin" -published 2011, Composed and Sung by Jeffrey M. Ostrowski
Featuring the….Gloria, plus also the Alleluia, Exsultet:
http://www.ccwatershed.org/chabanel/ ]]] ] COPYRIGHT @ 2018 CORPUS CHRISTI WATERSHED. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. www.ccwatershed.org/vatican/Ralph_Sherwin_Videos/

"Today I Arise" - For Patricia Kelly.  Original words and music by Paul W. Kelly. Inspired by St Patrick's Prayer.  Arranged and sung, with additional lyrics by Stefan Kelk. 2019.

[ Production - KER - 2020]

May God bless and keep you.




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