The Catholic Calendar for Saturday, April 15, 2006
At the Easter Vigil in the Holy Night of Easter

Scripture from today's Liturgy of the Word:
Exodus 14:15—15:1
Romans 6:3-11
Psalm 118:1-2, 16-17, 22-23
Mark 16:1-7

A reflection on today's Sacred Scripture:

"He has been raised, He is not here . . ."

Only yesterday the great sorrow, the great crime of humanity, the seeming destruction of all. Imagine the apostles seeing their teacher, their master, their friend taken and hung on a cross for doing nothing. The world has been turned upside down. There never was much justice, but now everything is arbitrary, this man who loved so much and was so much loved is hung out on a cross between two known murderers and rebels.

And today, another crime, or so it seems at first. Someone has stolen even His Body. But no. Not at all. We discover, although we may not yet be able to hear, that He is risen. He is no longer in the tomb. He has broken free from death, and in breaking free has freed us all from death. He is Lord of the living and all who come to Him are the living.

Alleluia! God returns to us! He is gone from death and become the Lord of Life! He is triumphant and we triumph in Him. In His rising is our life, in Him we are secure. His Love pours out upon us and it is time and past time to share it with all of the world. The living know only His love and truth. They serve it to all people and dwell in it themselves, becoming Love itself.

Alleluia! In His victory is our own. We become one body with Jesus as the Head, a living and acceptable sacrifice to the Father, who accepts us gladly, the prodigals returned home through the greatest crime ever committed.

Alleluia! He is Risen! Death is destroyed, sin is crushed! Alleluia!


Easter Vigil Special:
A Reflection on The Exultet *

O happy fault, O necessary sin of Adam,
which gained for us so great a Redeemer!

O happy fault! Even sin is destroyed in the light of this Redeemer King. We rejoice in the faults that gave us the Faultless. Not that we wish to perpetuate them, but that without that first disobedience, we would never have come to know God in the way that we now can do. The necessary sin of Adam brought forth from all eternity the Jesus whose eternal life we begin to celebrate with the Easter vigil.

There is nothing happy in the Death of the Lord, but in the death of death itself is our triumph. And this triumph came through the happy fault of Adam. The necessary sin gained for us a redeemer beyond measure. By His wounds we are healed and in His glorious victory we see sin nailed to the cross and crucified.

O Happy fault that brought forth such a day and such a knowledge! If we had to lose our innocence, God gives back to us innocence and a depth of knowledge that might otherwise never have occurred. In this is our triumph and our redemption, that we know Love and we become love. We descend with Him and on this night we rise again.

O Happy Fault that brought to us such a redeemer
whose excellencies cannot be numbered.

O necessary sin that brought to us the depth
of the knowledge of the love of God.
Amen!

Alleluia, Alleluia, Alleluia!

- JuandelaCruz
(sriddle415 at yahoo dot com)

* Exultet: Learn more & see it in Latin or English

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