Bishop Kevin Farrell

The Chief Shepherd of the Catholic Diocese of Dallas

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We celebrate the unquenchable Light of Christ

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We celebrate the unquenchable Light of Christ

Easter is the premier Christian feast and the summit of the Liturgical year. All liturgies preceding Easter anticipate it and those proceeding from the feast commemorate it. The readings and the gospels of the Easter Vigil and the Easter Day Mass (and the optional afternoon Mass) trace salvation history from creation to the road to Emmaus. A single element of the Easter Vigil encapsulates the essence of the Feast of the Resurrection. That is the Exsultet or Easter Proclamation [Listen Here]

Properly called the Easter Proclamation, the Exsultet (or Exultet) which means to rejoice or express great joy, is the name most often used. It is celebrated before the lighted Easter candle at the conclusion of the procession to the altar following the lighting of the Easter candle from the Easter fire. The darkness of the unlighted church has been dispelled as the Easter fire is spread through the church by worshippers’ tapers lighted from the Easter candle. Chanting of the Exsultet by rights is the function of a deacon, but may be done by a priest or, in a truncated version, by a cantor.

Its first lines call on heaven and earth to rejoice at Jesus’ triumph over death

Exult, let them exult, the hosts of heaven,
exult, let Angel ministers of God exult,
let the trumpet of salvation
sound aloud our mighty King’s triumph! …

Rejoice, let Mother Church also rejoice,
arrayed with the lightning of his glory,
let this holy building shake with joy,
filled with the mighty voices of the peoples.

Recalling God’s rescuing Israel from slavery in Egypt and guiding them to safety by a pillar of cloud and fire, the hymn compares the rescued catechumens from the slavery of sin through Baptism, to the Exodus of the Hebrews from Egypt.

This is the night,
when once you led our forebears, Israel’s children,
from slavery in Egypt
and made them pass dry-shod through the Red Sea.

This is the night
that with a pillar of fire
banished the darkness of sin.

This is the night
that even now, throughout the world,
sets Christian believers apart from worldly vices
and from the gloom of sin,
leading them to grace
and joining them to his holy ones.

Easter, when Christ overcame death, ransomed us from the slavery of sin and reversed the sin of Adam, which, ignominious as it was, provided the path to redemption

This is the night,
when Christ broke the prison-bars of death
and rose victorious from the underworld.

Our birth would have been no gain,
had we not been redeemed.

O wonder of your humble care for us!
O love, O charity beyond all telling,
to ransom a slave you gave away your Son!
O truly necessary sin of Adam,
destroyed completely by the Death of Christ!
O happy fault
that earned so great, so glorious a Redeemer !

O truly blessed night,
worthy alone to know the time and hour
when Christ rose from the underworld!

Again we find the resurrection theme of light permeating the darkness, making this night “bright as day” and dispelling the results of Adam’s fall while restoring innocence. The Easter candle is offered to God as a solemn gift of the Church and sacrifice of praise.

This is the night
of which it is written:
The night shall be as bright as day,
dazzling is the night for me,
and full of gladness.

The sanctifying power of this night
dispels wickedness, washes faults away,
restores innocence to the fallen, and joy to mourners,
drives out hatred, fosters concord, and brings down the mighty.
On this, your night of grace, O holy Father,
accept this candle, a solemn offering,
the work of bees and of your servants’ hands,
an evening sacrifice of praise,
this gift from your most holy Church.

But now we know the praises of this pillar,
which glowing fire ignites for God’s honor,
a fire into many flames divided,
yet never dimmed by sharing of its light,
for it is fed by melting wax,
drawn out by mother bees
to build a torch so precious.

The Exsultet concludes with a prayer that on this blessed night this blessed candle’s light may continue unceasingly to overcome the darkness of the world, be joined to the heavenly lights and be found still upon the return of Jesus, the unquenchable Morning Star.

O truly blessed night,
when things of heaven are wed to those of earth,
and divine to the human.

Therefore, O Lord,
we pray you that this candle,
hallowed to the honor of your name,
may persevere undimmed,
to overcome the darkness of this night.

Receive it as a pleasing fragrance,
and let it mingle with the lights of heaven.

May this flame be found still burning
by the Morning Star:
the one Morning Star who never sets,
Christ your Son,
who, coming back from death’s domain,
has shed his peaceful light on humanity,
and lives and reigns for ever and ever.

R:  Amen.

I pray that the Light of Christ may continue to shine brightly this Easter and in days to come.

—

Image Credit: The Resurrection of Christ Alonso López de Herrera (ca. 1585 – ca.1675), Wikimedia Commons

We are witnesses to the Resurrection

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Resurrection of Christ

Today we celebrate the crowning truth of our Christian faith, the Resurrection of Jesus.

Easter is a time of great joy and happy memories. We emerge from the penitential season of Lent and the Sacred Triduum into the dawn of the Resurrection. Good Friday, the nadir of salvation history, is always followed by Easter, the zenith, and the two events can never be separated.

Beginning with Pentecost the Resurrection becomes the center of apostolic preaching and Paul writes in his letter to the Corinthians that “if Christ has not been raised, then empty is our preaching; empty, too, your faith.” (I Cor. 15:14) Each of us is called to bear witness to the Resurrection of Jesus, by word and action. The Second Vatican Council said, “Each individual lay person must stand before the world as a witness to the Resurrection and the life of the Lord Jesus and as a sign that God lives.” (Lumen Gentium #38)

Salvation history, the story of our redemption begins with the Incarnation, when God responds to our brokenness by sending his Son to dwell among us. It continues with the life and teaching of Jesus leading up to his Passion and death. It culminates in his Resurrection and return to the Father with the Ascension. From there, together with the Father, he sends the Holy Spirit beginning on Pentecost, to strengthen and enable us to join our response to the Father’s healing and forgiving love to Jesus’ perfect response.

It is also a time of happy memories.  From our childhood, we remember Easter baskets filled with colored eggs and candies, new outfits, family celebrations and stories of how Easter Bunnies and Easter Eggs, symbols of new life, came to be associated with Jesus’ rising to new life.  Of course, we are also reminded of the new life we shared with him at our own baptism.

Nature seems to join in the celebration as trees bud and crocus, daffodils, iris and tulips suddenly appear. New life springs forth everywhere. The somber Lenten vestments of the priest at Mass are replaced by the white of the Easter Season and we begin to prepare for Pentecost and being renewed by the Spirit.

This Easter season I pray that each of you and your loved ones will know the joy of the Resurrection and bear witness to it in your family and in your relations with others, especially the poor and marginalized.  May God bless each of you during this most joyous and holy time!

Image Credit: Resurrection of Christ by Raffaellino del Garbo (Wikimedia Commons)

The Resurrection of the Lord

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This is the day the Lord has made; let us rejoice and be glad. (Ps 118:24)

Ecclesiastes tells us that everything has its time. Easter is the time of joy and celebration. It is Resurrection time, and all creation seems to join in the celebration. Winter’s darkness surrenders to Spring’s sunshine and soft days. Jonquils and tulips burst from the ground and green-up begins.

This year is especially joyful because God has given us a new leader, Pope Francis. Pundits are still seeking an explanation for his election “out of the blue.” For those of us who believe, no explanation is necessary; for others, no explanation is possible. The Holy Spirit blows where it will.

As we emerge from the Lenten penitence into Easter joy let us keep in mind that the real message of Easter is that we are reconciled to the Father through Jesus’ loving sacrifice. Just as He was impelled by the Father’s love to take on human nature to reconcile us, Jesus’ love should impel us to be reconciled to others.

Forgiveness and healing are not only received, they are given. The Church cannot be the reconciling community it is called to be if it is not a loving community. The fruit of the Resurrection is not condemnation but forgiveness. We must all practice discipleship by becoming reconcilers—within our families, within our Church and within our society.

I pray that each of you and that our Church will be infused with the Holy Joy of the Resurrection and become joyful heralds of the Good News of the Gospel.

I wish you all a blessed and joyous Easter!

Easter Vigil: The triumph of the Resurrection

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Good Friday’s darkness and Saturday’s silence of the tomb are supplanted by the unbridled joy of the Easter Vigil when the Church rejoices at the Resurrection of the Lord and celebrates the sacraments of Christian initiation.

Celebration of the Easter Vigil on Saturday evening recalls the Jewish custom that the day begins with sunset rather than at midnight. Vigil in Latin means “wakeful”. Traditionally a vigil is a time of wakefulness in anticipation of an event. The Easter Vigil is the time that we await the Resurrection that occurred early on Sunday.

Prior to the Second Vatican Council the Easter Vigil service was frequently celebrated Holy Saturday morning, often with only the priest and other ministers present. Today the Easter Vigil is a very important celebration for the entire parish community.

It is rich in symbolism, beginning with the kindling of the Easter Fire outside the church used to light the Paschal Candle. The new fire signifies the resurrection of Christ from the tomb. Christ, the light of the world, has risen from the tomb. As the candle is carried into church in procession, the antiphon “Light of Christ,” is sung by the priest or deacon, to which the congregation responds “Thanks be to God,” The spreading of the light from the Paschal Candle reminds us of how the Light of Christ spread throughou the world puncturing the darkness of evil.

Once inside the Exultet or Easter Proclamation is sung by the deacon or the priest, recording in poetic form the history of salvation, recalling the Felix Culpa, or Happy Fault, the sin of Adam and Eve, described as happy because it necessitated the Incarnation to reconcile humanity with God. “O happy fault, O necessary sin of Adam, which gained for us so great a Redeemer!”

With the singing of the Gloria, the silence of the tomb is broken by the joyful ringing of churchbells and the darkness is completely dispersed by the illuminating of the church.

In a bit of anachronism, the liturgy returns to the Herew Scriptures, which trace the history of salvation through seven Old Testament readings and psalms leading us in word to the coming of Christ concluding, appropriately, with Roman’s 6, St. Paul’s magnificent description of baptism as sharing in the death and Resurrection of Jesus. “Are you unaware that we who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were indeed buried with him through baptism into death, so that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might live in newness of life.”

In the Gospel Matthew relates how Mary Magdalene and “the other Mary” discovered the empty tomb on Easter morning and are told by an angel “He has been raised from the dead, and he is going before you to Galilee; there you will see him.” They are then confronted by the Risen Christ who comissions them to be the first bearers of the Good News when he charges them to “Go tell my brothers to go to Galilee, and there they will see me.”

Following the homily is the baptismal liturgy where Jesus’ Passover from death to life, makes possible our Passover through the waters of Baptism. Catechumens are baptized and confirmed, and those being professed are confirmed, and all are welcomed into the Body of Christ. Next follows the renewal of baptismal promises with the sprinkling of the Easter Water recalling our own baptismal Passover.

The celebration of the Eucharist marks the high point of the Easter Vigil. The new members of the community receive their first Eucharist. The joyful alleluias that conclude the Easter Vigil mark the beginning of the Easter Season during which the Paschal Candle will be a continuous reminder that Christ is among his people.

Resurrexit sicut dixit. He is risen as he said.

He is risen indeed. Alleluia

The Resurrection of the Lord

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On this great feast we celebrate more than the Resurrection of the Lord, we celebrate our Redemption, the effect of the Lord’s Resurrection upon each of us. The opening prayer of the Easter liturgy expresses it beautifully. “God our Father, by raising Christ your Son you conquered the power of death and opened for us the way to eternal life. Let our celebration today raise us up and renew our lives by the Spirit that is within us.”

We are remindd by Peter’s words in the reading from the Acts of the Apostles that our Redemption is a beginning and not an end. They are taken from his baptism of Cornelius, a Roman Centurion, and his family. It is the Apostle’s first outreach to the gentile community and presages the ready acceptance of the gospel by the Greco-Roman world. Peter sends us a clear message as to what our task is. Like Peter, we are impelled by the Christ event to share it, to mediate it to others. “We are witnesses to what he did.” We must proclaim Jesus as Savior and “bear witness that everyone who believes in him will receive forgiveness of sins through his name.”

Our Redemption does not mean that we should rest in satisfied self-righteousness, but rather, that we must set about continuing and completing the work of Christ and the Apostles. Just as the Light of Christ dispelled the darkness of death, by our words and our actions, we must raise up Christ in our communities, in our place of work, in our families, in our world where the darkness of sin and selfishness needs to be dispelled. In the words of the responsorial psalm, because of the Resurrection “I shall not die, but live, and declare the works of the Lord.”

As members of the Body of Christ we continue the saving work of Christ, not on our own but by the power of “the Spirit that lives within us.”

I wish you all a very blessed Easter.

The Easter Vigil of the Lord’s Resurrection

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The Easter Vigil is not a Holy Saturday service, but is celebrated Easter Night, as each day begins with the previous evening’s vigil. It is the solemnity of solemnities, the pinnacle of the liturgical year. It is a waiting for the coming of the Lord.

No liturgy is richer in symbolic acts and gestures. There are four parts to the vigil liturgy: The Service of Light and the Easter Proclamation; the Liturgy of the Word, a prolonged meditation on the wonderful works the Lord has wrought for his people; reception of new members reborn in baptism and the celebration of the Eucharist, the high point of the vigil.

Properly, the Easter Vigil begins in total darkness which is dispelled by the light of the new fire that is blessed outside the church, recalling “…this most holy night when our Lord Jesus Christ passed from death to life…the Passover of the Lord.”

The new fire is blessed as a sharing in the glory of God “through your Son, the light of the world.” The new fire is used to light the Paschal Candle , symbolizing Christ. The Paschal Candle then leads the congregation in procession into the church, where “Christ our light” is intoned three times. The fire is then passed from the Paschal Candle to the congregation further dispelling the darkness in the church.

Concluding the first portion of the vigil, the deacon or priest chants the Easter Proclamation or Exultet , a poetic text that tells the story of the Easter mystery, including the “Felix Culpa” or Happy Fault, the “necessary sin of Adam which gained for us so great a redeemer.”

There follows the Liturgy of the Word, which includes seven readings from the Old Testament which give an account of the outstanding deeds of the history of salvation. The Gloria is then sung, the lights of the church turned on and the bells joyously rung after which we are reminded that God has “brightened this night with the radiance of the Risen Christ.”

Anticipating the baptism of new members, Paul’s Letter to the Romans reminds us that “we who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death” so that “just as Christ was raised from the dead…we too might live in newness of life.”

The Gospel reading returns to Luke for the story of the women of Galilee visiting Christ’s tomb and finding it empty and being asked by the angel “Why do you seek the living among the dead? He is not here, but he has been raised,” the first proclamation of the Resurrection.

Baptism and confirmation of new members follows the homily, including the blessing of the baptismal water wherein the priest recalls the important role of water in salvation history and prays that the Father will “by the power of the Spirit give to the water of this font the grace of your Son.”

Catechumens and candidates have spent a year in preparation for this night when the celebrant prays to God to “send your spirit of adoption on those to be born again in baptism.”

After the baptism of new members, the members of the congregation renew their baptismal promises and are sprinkled with water, recalling in gestures and words the baptism they had received.

Finally, for the first time the newly baptized and confirmed participate fully in the Easter Sacrament by joining in the Liturgy of the Eucharist, the commemoration of the sacrifice of the cross and the presence of the risen Christ.

The vigil concludes with the great Easter Allelulia

Passion or Palm Sunday

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During Lent we have been led by the Sunday gospels on a mini-journey through Jesus’ public ministry and teaching. Beginning with his Baptism and his Transfiguration, we follow his journey; his rejection of illness as a punishment for sin, his giving the fig tree another chance to bear fruit, his preaching on forgiveness in the stories of the Prodigal Son and the adulteress woman as he moves toward Jerusalem.

The liturgical observance of the day of his arrival in Jerusalem is called Palm Sunday of the Lord’s Passion. It is unique in that there are two gospel readings. The first gospel reading gives us the name Palm Sunday. The reading from Luke is proclaimed outside the Church which symbolizes Jerusalem. It tells of Jesus approaching Jerusalem from Bethany, across the Mount of Olives.

His entry is delayed while his Apostles go ahead to find a mount for him to ride. Matthew tells us it was a young donkey. His entry is a joyous one with onlookers hailing his arrival and placing palm branches in his path. Here we have two important symbols, the donkey which recalls the donkey upon which Solomon entered Jerusalem after his anointing to succeed David as King, and the palms, an ancient symbol of victory and triumph.

Symbolically we join in the celebration as we follow Jesus into Jerusalem carrying our palm branches as the procession enters the church. Immediately the tenor changes with a passage from Isaiah reflecting Jesus’ determination to accept his fate. “I have set my face like flint, knowing that I shall not be put to shame.” We are then reminded of what is to come by the 22nd Psalm, which Jesus will utter from the cross. “My God, My God, why have you abandoned me?”

Finally, we are told of the events that are to occur. The Passion is read, Luke’s story of the suffering and death of the Lord which gives this Sunday its other designation, Passion Sunday.

So, through our participating in the symbol and ritual we join with the Lord as he prepares to enter into his final hours before his betrayal and death.