ARCHDIOCESE OF PHILADELPHIA

Dear Friends,

Jesus Christ is risen from the dead. Alleluia! Alleluia!

This is the good news of great joy that the Church proclaims on this holy night. This is the Easter proclamation of the Church. This is the Easter Gospel. This is the joy of being a Christian. This is the hope of humanity.

A little while ago some of us gathered in front of the Cathedral Basilica for the liturgy of light, to proclaim that the Risen Christ is the light of the world. We then followed in procession after the Easter Candle, which represents Christ our light. By His Resurrection, Jesus dispelled the darkness of the world and became our leader, leading us in His light, along the path of life, to eternal life.

Christ has shown His power over sin and death. He has overcome death. Indeed, by dying He has destroyed our death and by rising He has restored our life. We remember that Jesus told us: "I am the way, and the truth, and life" and again "I am the light of the world."

This evening after our liturgy of light we have had the liturgy of the word. We have heard about the wonders that God did for His people in the Old Testament. We proclaimed God’s love in creation and in how He delivered His people from Egypt, enabling them to pass through the Red Sea. This was the first Passover.

Through the prophet Isaiah we heard about God’s intention to offer pardon to His people and establish with them an everlasting covenant, through which they would have life.

And tonight in the third part of our liturgy, the liturgy of Baptism, we see the complete fulfillment of God’s promise. While all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus are conscious of the great privilege of our own Baptism, we welcome into the Church our catechumen and those who are being received into the full communion of the Catholic Church. What a joy for us all to welcome these new members to the household of the faith! We thank all those who have helped them to arrive at this sacred night.

Here we pause to reflect on the meaning of Baptism. Saint Paul explains it all to us. He tells us that Baptism associates us with the Death and Resurrection of Christ. Indeed through Baptism we die with Christ and are buried with him. And then come those wonderful words of the Apostle Paul: "If, then, we have died with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with him. We know that Christ, raised from the dead, dies no more." St. Paul then explains the impact of Baptism on us and on our conduct. "You"—he says—"must think of yourselves as being dead to sin but living for God in Christ Jesus."

This tells it all: "dead to sin but living for God in Christ Jesus." This is why we administer Baptism this night; this is why all of us have been baptized: to die to sin, to live for God in Christ Jesus.

And with our Baptism and Confirmation we receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. Christ and His Father give us the gift of the Holy Spirit, so that we may live and walk in newness of life.

The fourth part of our celebration is the liturgy of the Eucharist itself, in which Jesus our Lord renews the Sacrifice of His Death on Calvary and its glorious culmination in the Resurrection. Through His banquet he shares with us His Body and Blood as the pledge of life, eternal life—the same life that He received from His Father in His Resurrection. He makes it possible for us to live eternally in the communion of the Most Blessed Trinity.

And so, dear friends, the Church continues to proclaim the Easter message—the message the women heard from the angels when they went to look for Jesus in the tomb: "Why do you seek the living one among the dead? He is not here, but has been raised."

And because Jesus has been raised up in victory over death and sin, we too are called to walk in newness of life. The Risen Lord is our Light. He teaches us how to live, how to love, how to serve one another. Through the power of His Death and Resurrection, He infuses into us the strength to be faithful in the community of the Church to His way of life — our holy Catholic faith.

At Easter, God’s grace calls back to the community many people, who in the past, for one reason or another, have been separated from the practice of their faith and therefore from the joy of celebrating Christ’s Resurrection. Today the Church reaches out in particular to those brothers and sisters, to welcome them and to share with them the joy of Christ’s Resurrection.

Dear friends: to all of you I proclaim good news of great joy: Jesus Christ is risen from the dead. Alleluia! Alleluia!