To love Jesus is ultimately to mix sorrow and joy

Easter Vigil in the Holy Night of Easter

April 11, 2020 •

One of the things that we learn from the resurrection of our Lord and our faith is that to love Jesus is ultimately to mix sorrow and joy. Consider for a moment what it cost our Lord to give us this joy today. The price was steep. And yet He was willing to pay it because of His love for us. And we can be saved - we are saved - precisely because of what He went through over these last few days. How can we not remember the sorrow, and even experience it ourselves because it was our sins that brought it about, while we simultaneously rejoice?...

On this night, I think it's important for us to consider why our Lord is asking this particular suffering of us as a Catholic people. You can't attend the holy liturgies. You're prevented from receiving Communion. Why would Jesus be asking this of you? Because He is. It's happening....

Suffering is the means by which salvation is brought about. And we who are united with Christ in His holy Body, the Church, must therefore share in that same Cross and in that same ministry.... For us, as we grow in holiness, our crosses, our suffering - body, mind, spirit, all of them - ultimately should be our joy.

Gn 1:1—2:2; Ps 104:1-2, 5-6, 10, 12, 13-14, 24, 35; Gn 22:1-18; Ps 16:5, 8, 9-10, 11; Ex 14:15—15:1; Ex 15:1-2, 3-4, 5-6, 17-18; Is 54:5-14; Ps 30:2, 4, 5-6, 11-12, 13; Is 55:1-11; Is 12:2-3, 4, 5-6; Bar 3:9-15, 32—4:4; Ps 19:8, 9, 10, 11 ; Ez 36:16-17a, 18-2; Is 12:2-3, 4bcd, 5-6; Rom 6:3-11; Ps 118:1-2, 16-17, 22-23; Mt 28:1-10

Easter vigil video here. Apologies for the signal quality. Homily begins at 50:05