Ampleforth Abbey

This Easter Vigil, as I am sure you have realised, is a sacred drama in which we celebrate the triumph of Good over Evil, Light over Darkness.  In this drama we have traced the story of our salvation.  We have recalled how God intervened again and again in human history in order to make it possible that man should choose, freely choose, to reject evil and embrace good.  Each of us knows that we are a curious admixture of darkness and light; it seems to be part of being human.  Now, through the saving death and resurrection of Jesus Christ it is possible for all of us to reject the darkness of sin and embrace the light of goodness in this life with the result that we may be blessed by everlasting life with Christ in the presence of his Father.  This was always the destiny for which God made us.  Now it is an achievable reality once more.

Now that we have traced the history of our salvation we can look forward in the remainder of this Vigil to two further key moments: 

The first will follow at the end of this homily.  After his resurrection Jesus said to his disciples, ‘Go, ... make disciples of nations; baptise them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teach them to observe all the commands I gave you’ (Matt 28.19).  We will celebrate the Baptismal Liturgy.  This year we are especially blessed because Tommy Foster will be baptised into the Body of Christ.  We will be witnesses to this joyful moment in his life.  Then each of us will recall our own baptism and we will renew our baptismal promises.  We will do this knowing that a Christian life lived to the full inevitably attracts other men and women into the life of the Risen Lord. 

The second important moment follows a little later in our Vigil when we fulfil the command Jesus gave his disciples at the Last Supper, ‘Do this in memory of me’ (cf 1 Cor 11.25).  When we eat the Body of the Lord and drink his Blood we share in the life of our Risen Lord and so are empowered to live the kind of life to which we vowed ourselves in our baptismal promises.

Dear Friends, the life to which we are vowing ourselves is a life of Faith.  The reality we hold most dear; everlasting life in our heavenly homeland in the presence of God and his angels and saints; lies on the other side of the doorway formed by our human death.  Because everlasting life is in the future, it is all too easy for us to be seduced by the promise of good things now away from a life of light and goodness into a lesser good, even, sometimes, into evil.  None of us is exempt from temptation; all of us can fall into sin.  It is for this reason that we need each other.  We have been united by our common baptism, united by the life of Christ which is within each one of us, and which is renewed when we receive his Body and Blood in Holy Communion.  If we share our lived experience of faith we are able to see Christ’s life growing within each other.   We can encourage others in their life of faith and we, too, are encouraged to persevere in the Way we have embraced.  I urge you, then, in the coming weeks and months to share your Christian life with others in order that together we may build up Christ’s Body on earth so that all mankind may come to know something of the richness of the life to which almighty God is calling them.

Abbot Cuthbert Madden, OSB