HOMILY FOR EASTER VIGIL MASS
THEME: THE MOTHER OF ALL NIGHTS
BY: Rev Fr Stephen ‘Dayo Osinkoya
HOMILY FOR SATURDAY APRIL 16 2022
Tonight we gather to celebrate the mother of all nights. We have got so many types of vigils, however, the Easter Vigil is the mother of all vigils. Easter Vigil is the mother of all vigils because the priest proclaims in the Exultet: “This is the night when Jesus Christ broke the chains of death and rose triumphant from the dead.”
So to fully celebrate this night, we have taken parts in all the rituals for this Easter vigil. We have done this by making ourselves available to become symbols and concrete expressions of being saved by Christ . We lit the
Easter candle, the light of Christ, which points out to us that through Christ, the darkness of our sins and of our world has come to an end. If we still see darkness among us Christians, it is because someone is not allowing his/her light to shine. From that light of Christ we also lit our own candles and that tells us that we allow Christ to shine through us- to be our source of light and nothing or no one else.
Tonight we also renew our baptismal promises in order to remind us that we had a promise to the Lord, that is, to be always faithful to Him, to be a prayerful person (priestly role), to make our lives good news to others or to be a witness (prophetic role) and to be servant of all (kingly role). We renew these promises in order to have a weapon in fighting against evil and sins in our lives. We therefore are called Easter people. And we are called to live this out in our lives.
As Easter people therefore, we need to put an end to our search for the living among the dead. This means that we stop looking for salvation, progress, promotion, success, good health, breakthrough among the dead, that is, in practices like syncretism, sorcery, black magic, Idolatry, atheism, materialism, greed, envy, pride, self-righteousness, selfishness, etc. Jesus, our salvation is not there, he is risen. He is now to be found among the living, in each one of us.
This is the heart of our celebration right now. We must die with Christ so that we can live with Him. We must believe with these early Christians and with our ancestors in the faith that God can do all things and that, most of all, God loves us enough to give us life and rescue us from sin so that we can live forever. To Him be all praise and glory forever.
*Rev Fr Stephen ‘Dayo Osinkoya*