Easter Vigil Year A

Gospel Reading: Matthew 28: 1-10

1  After the sabbath, and towards dawn on the first day of the week, Mary of Magdala and the other Mary went to visit the sepulcher.

2 And all at once there was a violent earthquake, for the angle of the Lord, descending from heaven, came and rolled away the stone and sat on it.

3 His face was like lightning, his robe white as snow.

4 The guards were so shaken, so frightened of him, that they were like dead men.

5 But the angel spoke; and he said to the women, "There is no need for you to be afraid. I know you are looking forJesus, who was crucified.

6 He is not here, for he has risen, as he said he would. Come and see the place where he lay,

7 then go quickly and tell his disciples, 'He has risen from the dead and now he is going before you to Galilee ; it is there you will see him.' Now I have told you."

8 Filled with awe and great joy the women came quickly away from the tomb and ran to tell the disciples.

9 And there, coming to meet them, was Jesus. "Greetings," he said. And the women came up to him and, falling down before him, clasped his feet.

10 Then Jesus said to them, "Do not be afraid; go and tell my brothers that they must leave for Galilee ; they will see me there."

Meditation

Each gospel tells the story of the resurrection in its own way. Enter therefore into the details of the passage before you, and identify with one of the characters involved.
There are several characters in the story. First of all Jesus himself.

Your meditation will lead you to recognize how he continues to lie in the tomb and then rise again: an experience of God, a biblical word, a cause, a holy person.
The story of the women is in three distinct stages:

In verse 1 they are the faithful ones who go to the tomb although the cause seems lost.

In verses 3 to 6 they experience the resurrection.

In verses 7 and 8 they receive the commission to announce the good news.

Prayer 

 Lord, today we remember people who once gave themselves with enthusiasm to a project:

they got married with the dream of founding a true Christian family;

they joined a religious congregation; they started a political party that would be different;

a youth group was going to change things in a parish.

Today their hopes have been shattered and they are grieving; for them remembering the past is like going to visit a sepulcher.
Lord, send them someone who will be like an angel descending from heaven
and who will tell them that in life, when we set out in search of a noble dream, it is never lost.
 It may lie in the tomb for three days, and we can go to see where it lay. But the dream itself is not there, it is risen, and so we must not delay at the tomb, but we must go and tell those who shared it with us that we can return to Galilee where it all started knowing it is alive and we will see it again.

"We have seen immense changes taking place throughout Eastern Europe . Those who bravely nourished the roots of faith in wintry days now rejoice in heaven and on earth at signs of springtime." Archbishop Runcie of Canterbury , Message to the people of Russia , 1989.
Lord, we thank you for the fall of oppressive regimes in Eastern Europe .
It was as if all at once there was a violent earthquake and your angel descended from heaven and rolled away the great stone that had kept whole populations imprisoned for over forty years.
Those in authority were badly shaken, so frightened that they were like dead men.
But the common people knew that they need not be afraid, the spirit of freedom had risen as they always knew it would, and filled with awe and great joy they ran to tell the world the good news.
We remember with gratitude those who did not lose hope, like Mary Magdala and the other Mary going to visit the sepulcher of Jesus.

"Some would consider our hopes utopian. It may be that these persons are not realistic enough and that they have not perceived the dynamism of a world which is spite of its mistakes is, even unaware, taking slow but sure steps towards its creation." Pope Paul VI, Populorum Progressio
Lord, we pray for Church leaders,
that they may continue to bring hope to the world. Where others see darkness, may they show that dawn is near, and what others experience as the end of an era may they see as the first day of a new one.

"History shows us that penalties do not deter men when their conscience is aroused, nor will they deter my people." Nelson Mandela at his trial in 1962
Lord, how foolish tyrants are. They think they can imprison the human spirit in a tomb, make the tomb secure by their threats, put seals on the tombstone and mount a guard over it.
But the human spirit is your presence in the world, and so the day must come when you will roll away the stone and the ridiculous guards will be shaken and frightened; while their prisoners are alive and free, they will be like dead men.

Lord, you sometimes leave us in a hopeless situation from which only your direct intervention can rescue us; and yet you want us to wait there like the women at the tomb of Jesus,
so that when your angel descends from heaven and rolls away the stone we are there to receive the good news and run to tell it to others.

"God's work comes out of silence and brings us to silence."
Maggie Ross, a modern hermit
Lord, we Church people talk so much about Jesus that we end up thinking we have him under our control:

we understand his message perfectly;

we can judge who are his disciples;

we know how he will act in the future.