Homily for the Easter Vigil

Sunday, April 5, 2026
Easter Vigil – 5:30 a.m.

Homily by Father Emmanuel Schwab

Reading: Romans 6:3b-11

Gospel: Mark 16:1-7

We began our vigil with this first, well-known story from the Book of Genesis, which describes God's Creation in seven days. The author is clearly aware of what he is doing. Because of the lunar cycle, which lasts approximately four weeks, the seven-day week became established very early in human history: the new moon, the first crescent, the full moon, the last crescent, the new moon… Telling the mystery of Creation within a seven-day structure allows us to constantly remind ourselves, with our calendar, that we live in a created world. The seven days of the week, from Sunday to Saturday, continually remind us that we have a Creator, that this world has been entrusted to our care, not for us to be its predators, but its guardians.

And when man is instructed to “dominate” the world — in French, the word dominate comes from the Latin dominus, which means master, Lord, and this is how we refer to God who is Lord — it is therefore a matter of behaving towards Creation as God behaves, that is to say, as the one who gives life, and not as the one who gives death.

Christ rose from the dead on the first day of the week. This first day, which brings creation out of chaos, is the day on which the light appears. Saint Augustine likes to speak of this day of Jesus' resurrection as the eighth day of Creation; and by calling the day of the resurrection the eighth day, he means to signify that in the risen Jesus, Creation is complete, it has reached its fullness. In the person of Jesus, death is dead; in the person of Jesus, there is no trace of sin; in the person of Jesus, humanity is in full communion with God; in the person of Jesus, what God intended in creating the world is accomplished, one might even say achieved. And now, what is offered to humanity is to be united with Jesus to share in this fullness, to share in this fulfillment, freely, without any merit on our part. The mystery of baptism is to draw us into the person of Jesus. We heard it in that magnificent chapter 6 of the Letter to the Romans: “All of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death… and were buried with him so that we might live a new life.” And Sunday, the first day of the week and also the eighth, is the day we celebrate the resurrection of Christ. It is the day we enter into a new week, beginning with this mystery of the resurrection. And we heard it: “So you also must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus.”

When you search Thérèse's writings for the word "resurrection" or the word "risen," you're often disappointed: there are very few occurrences. This is because Thérèse doesn't actually speak much about the Risen One; she lives constantly with the Risen One. Her life is an uninterrupted dialogue with Jesus. Through faith and her love for the Lord, she lives constantly, not in a tangible presence of Jesus, but in that presence which we receive through faith. And if the longest liturgical season of the year is Eastertide, which lasts 50 days, from today until Pentecost, it's because the most important thing is to learn to live constantly with the Risen One. And I cannot urge us enough during these 50 days, not only daily, but as often as possible, to pray in our hearts: You are here, living, risen Lord. You are here, you are here. Our life must become a companionship with the Risen One in order to continually receive from him this love that restores us, this mercy that restores us.

The passage where Thérèse speaks of the tomb and the resurrection is in Manuscript B, when she is searching for her vocation and is unable to find it. In her description, while reading the Holy Scriptures during her retreat, she refers to Mary Magdalene leaning into the empty tomb, weeping and seeking her Lord. And Thérèse says: like Magdalene leaning into the depths of the tomb.

She found what she was looking for because the Lord, behind her, is calling her.

Thérèse also finds in the Holy Scriptures what she seeks. This is the movement of the search for the Risen One: he never ceases to come to us.

Yes, we are not only disciples of the Risen One, but through baptism we have become members of his Body, through confirmation we have received the fullness of the Holy Spirit who raised Jesus from the dead, and through the Eucharist the life of the Risen One is constantly renewed in us so that we may live as the living who have returned from death, says Saint Paul a few verses later in this chapter 6, so that we may live dead to sin and alive to God in Jesus Christ; understanding that death no longer has any power over Jesus and that if death still does its work in us, it does so in a different way because we are united to the Risen One, because the life of the Risen One flows in us.

So brothers and sisters, on this Easter morning, as the sun is rising, let us welcome this grace and decide to truly live the newness of the resurrection, to truly renounce sin as we will say in a few moments and to put all our faith and all our love in Jesus to walk daily with him, and that those around us, seeing us live, may discover something of the mystery of Christ and may they too in turn love and follow him.

Amen.