The Easter Vigil with the Queen of Heaven
Homily for the Easter Vigil
Religious Sisters of Mercy, Domus Guadalupe
7 April 2012
+ J. Augustine Di Noia, O.P.
Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ. Irresistibly, as we have contemplated the mysteries of the Passion of Christ in Mary’s company, our attention has been drawn to the mystery of his Holy Nativity. As Blessed John Paul wrote, “No one has ever devoted himself to the contemplation of the face of Christ as faithfully as Mary” (John Paul II, Rosarium Virginis Mariae, §10). Why? Because “in a unique way the face of the Son belongs to Mary. It was in her womb that Christ was formed, receiving from her a human resemblance which points to an even greater spiritual closeness” (ibid.). As we sang at Christmas, “O that birth forever blessed, / When the Virgin full of grace, /By the Holy Ghost conceiving,/ Bore the Savior of our race; / And the Babe, the world’s Redeemer, / First revealed his sacred face, / Evermore and evermore” (Prudentius, Of the Father’s Love Begotten).
As tonight we sing, not Stabat Mater Dolorosa but Regina coeli laetare, Alleluia, we cannot fail to notice that the next lines of the antiphon recall precisely her divine maternity to identify the Risen One: Quia quem meruisti portare, Alleluia / Resurrexit sicut dixit, Alleluia. Our Lady’s “gaze of sorrow” is now “transformed into a gaze radiant with the joy of the Resurrection”(John Paul II, Rosarium Virginis Mariae, 10) because it is the face of one formed in her womb upon which the glory of the resurrection now blazes forth.
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