At the Easter Vigil Mass in the Basilica of the Holy Sepulchre, Cardinal Pierbattista Pizzaballa said that “Jerusalem, a city marked by the memory of death, and today by so many divisions, becomes the place where life is proclaimed”. Source: Vatican News.
“Easter does not begin with a proclamation of victory, but with listening to a story: a story that confronts death to reach life.”
With these words, Cardinal Pizzaaballa, the Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem, recalled the passage through darkness necessary to reach the Resurrection, in his homily for the Easter Vigil celebration that he presided over on the morning of Saturday, April 4, in the Basilica of the Holy Sepulchre.
Given security restrictions, only a few people took part in the liturgy, including the Franciscan friars of the Custody of the Holy Land. They live in the convent of the Holy Sepulchre, called by local Christians “the Church of the Resurrection”.
“The doors are still closed. The silence is almost absolute, broken perhaps by the distant sound of what war continues to sow in this holy and torn land,” Cardinal Pizzaballa began, adding that in this very place “the Word of God resounds louder than any silence”.
The Cardinal explained that the faith of the Christian community in the Holy Land is “a fragile faith that has been tested, perhaps weary… yet still standing,” not because of their own strength but “because Someone sustains us here”.
The Patriarch noted that the long Liturgy of the Word led the faithful, step by step, to the Gospel of Matthew, where the angel of the Lord rolls back the stone after a great earthquake.
This is the “heart of a passage that shakes the whole world: a stone removed not by human strength, but by divine power,” he underlined.
Christians, therefore, are called to bear “the sign of an empty tomb: a sign that does not deny history but opens it to hope.”
In particular, he urged them to remove “the stone of resignation, of resentment, of mistrust.” He concluded his homily with an “Easter message” from the Holy Sepulchre: “Do not stand still before the stones of the world, but let us become— as much as we are able – ‘living stones,’ signs of reconciliation, artisans of hope, witnesses to a life that death can no longer extinguish.”
Last week, Cardinal Pizzaballa was prevented from entering the Church of the Holy Sepulchre on Palm Sunday by Israeli authorities citing security concerns, but was later granted access to the holy sites for the Easter ceremonies.
FULL STORY
Cardinal Pizzaballa: ‘The Word of God resounds louder than any silence’ (By Beatrice Guarrera, Vatican News)
