By Joseph Tulloch
Pope Leo XIV reflected on good, evil, and rebirth on Saturday evening, as he presided over the Easter Vigil Mass in St Peter’s Basilica.
Easter, the Pope said, quoting from an ancient hymn, “drives out hatred, fosters concord and brings down the mighty”.
READ THE FULL TEXT OF THE HOMILY HERE
The history of salvation
While the heart of the Easter story is Jesus’ resurrection from the dead, Pope Leo said, “the holy mystery of this night … extends across the centuries”.
In the nine Scripture passages read during the liturgy, the Pope explained, we glimpse some of the stages of this “path of reconciliation and grace”, from God’s creation of the world to the Israelites’ flight from Egypt to the ministry of St Paul.
The unifying theme of all these moments in salvation history, the Pope stressed, is that “God responds to the hardness of sin – which divides and kills – with the power of love, which unites and restores life”.
Love transcends death
Pope Leo then reflected on Christ’s Resurrection, as narrated in Matthew’s Gospel.
When the two Marys visit Jesus’ tomb, an earthquake rolls away the stone blocking the entrance.
In that moment, the Pope said, what the women witness is ”the power of God’s love, stronger than any force of evil … Humanity can kill the body, but the life of the God of love is eternal life, which transcends death and which no tomb can imprison”.
War, injustice, and isolation
In the final portion of his homily, Pope Leo reflected on the “tombs still to be opened today”, such as “mistrust, fear, selfishness, and resentment”, as well as “war, injustice, and the isolation of peoples and nations”.
The Pope exhorted his listeners to not allow themselves to be “paralysed” in the face of such challenges.
Instead, he said, we should imitate the “commitment” of the saints who have gone before us, so that “the Easter gifts of harmony and peace might grow and flourish everywhere and always throughout the world”. – Vatican News
