Easter Vigil at the Holy Sepulchre - Homily of Archbishop Pizzaballa

The traditional Easter Vigil, through which Christians in all parts of the world penetrate the mystery of the resurrection of the Lord, entering into the joy of his glorious life, is celebrated in the early morning of Holy Saturday in Jerusalem. This Vigil, which the Church considers “the mother of all holy vigils”, is usually held at night, but here it is brought forward to the morning hours for reasons of local necessity according to the provisions of the status quo. The 19th-century liturgical arrangements which still govern in the church require this celebration as before the reform of the Holy Week liturgy by Pope Pius XII in 1955, the Easter Vigil was celebrated on Holy Saturday morning.The celebration takes place in the same place as the Anastasis, before the Aedicule of the Empty Tomb, discovered Easter morning by Mary Magdalene, and proclaims the gospel of the Lord who rose gloriously from the dead.

Easter Vigil

Church of the Holy Sepulcher

Jerusalem, April 15, 2017

Dear brothers and sisters,

May the Lord give you peace!

We are gathered at the Great Celebration of the entire Liturgical Year. We should say gathered at the “night of nights” or “the great vigil”, but instead we are in the early hours of Saturday. The liturgy throughout the rest of the world on this day celebrates silence and waiting. In fact, there are no liturgical celebrations throughout the day. Around the world, the tomb of Christ and the mystery of his death are “guarded”, in a great and wonderful silence, but not like the watch guards of the Gospel that we just heard. There is no fear in us, not even a tremor (28:4), because in our heart we already know what awaits us. The whole Church is taking care of this waiting, in the certainty of the glorious day of resurrection. Therefore, it is an expectation filled with serene hope.

In Jerusalem we lose this moment of silence and waiting. We seem eager to rush at once towards the joy of the risen One. Besides, the entire Holy Week has been a race. From the Mount of Olives to the Holy City. From the Upper Room and to Gethsemane and from Gethsemane to Calvary and the Tomb, the Holy City liturgies make us run all over the city, like the disciples and the women of the Sepulcher, as if in wanting to stubbornly emphasize our belonging to these holy stones; liturgies spelled out by times and ancient and complicated processes that must fit our races to those of other Christian Churches that celebrate the same events in the same places, and also of the other non-Christian communities of Jerusalem, also here to pray in the House Prayer for all peoples, as the prophet Isaiah says (56:7).

I like to think, as partial justification for this racing and this impatience of ours, which cannot be otherwise, it cannot be but this way. Like two thousand years ago, so also today in the world one cannot have Easter, if it’s not first celebrated in Jerusalem. Christ rises in the world, in churches and men’s homes, after the Sign of the empty tomb is announced here in Jerusalem.

And now we come to the meaning of our celebration. What then are we celebrating today in this morning vigil?

We celebrate four Passovers, four passages: the exodus from Egypt and from our slavery; the passage of the Lord among His people as a sign of their release; we celebrate the Passover meal, the memorial by means of which the Jewish people to this day commemorate the salvific event (“With your loins girded, your shoes on your feet and your staff in your hand; you shall eat it in haste. It is the Lord’s Passover” Ex 12:11); we celebrate the Passover of Christ, His passage from this world to the Father (Jn 13:1) and finally celebrate the Passover of the Church in the sacrament of the Eucharist.

Moreover, the Word of God that we’ve heard, and the signs and symbols that we saw and which we will mention in this celebration place before us the whole history of salvation: the fire and the light, the water and the bread are accompanied by the contemplation of God’s work in us, from creation to the resurrection of Christ and up to the time of the Church, with the letter to the Romans.

The Tomb of Christ Reopened in Jerusalem

This morning, the Greek Orthodox Patriarch of Jerusalem, Theophilos III, presided over the reopening of the shrine over the tomb of Christ within the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, after many months of restoration work. (The shrine is known as the Aedicule, from the Latin “aediculum - a small building,” and is contained within a large rotunda which forms the back half of the church.)

New Liturgical Movement notes that The Jerusalem Patriarchate has a fairly active Youtube channel, with the video below; go to after about 30 minutes of milling around, when there is some nice music, and representatives of the various communities that use the church speak, including the superior of the Holy Land Franciscans.