HOLY SATURDAY NIGHT – VIGIL OF EASTER. Year C - SATURDAY, 2025 (Longer Liturgy of the Easter VIGIL)

HOLY SATURDAY NIGHT – VIGIL OF EASTER. Year C - SATURDAY, 2025 (Longer Liturgy of the Easter VIGIL)

 

 

(This is the whole vigil of Readings and Holy Saturday Mass – It is traditionally much longer than the usual Mass and filled with ancient beauty and profound symbolism)
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Please listen to the audio recordings of the Mass – (Readings, prayers, and homily) for HOLY SATURDAY NIGHT – VIGIL OF EASTER. Year C – SATURDAY 2025, by clicking this link here:    https://soundcloud.com/user-633212303/holy-saturday-vigil-of-easter/s-68SwCGOpyuv

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The Easter Vigil in the Holy Night

STRUCTURE OF THE CEREMONY
I. The Solemn Beginning of the Vigil (also known as "Lucernarium"):  Blessing of the Fire, Procession, Exsultet

II. The Liturgy of Word:           Readings/psalms/prayers, Gloria, Homily

III. Renewal of baptism

IV. The Liturgy of Eucharist:    Preface of Easter I, (Easter Communicantes, Hanc igitur in Euch. Prayer I)

V. The Concluding Rites:         Dismissal with Alleluia

READINGS:       
I     Gen 1:1 - 2:2: God saw all he had made, and indeed it was good.
Ps 103:1-2, 5-6, 10, 12-14, 24, 35: R. Lord, send out your Spirit, and renew the face of the earth.

II    Gen 22:1-18: Abraham's sacrifice of Isaac.
Ps 15:5, 8-11: R. Keep me safe, O God; you are my hope.

III  Ex 14:15 - 15:1: Tell the children of Israel to march on, to walk through the sea on dry ground.
Ex 15:1-6, 17-18: R. Let us sing to the Lord; he has covered himself in glory.

IV  Is 54:5-14: But with everlasting love I have taken pity on you, says the Lord, your redeemer.
Ps 29:2, 4-6, 11-13: R. I will praise you, Lord, for you have rescued me.

V   Is 55:1-11: Come to me and your soul will live. With you I will make an everlasting covenant.
Is 12:2-6: R. You will draw water joyfully from the springs of salvation.

VI  Baruch 3:9-15,32 - 4:4: Walk in the way of God and you will live in peace forever.
Ps 18:8-11: R. Lord, you have the words of everlasting life.

VII Ezek 36:16-28: I shall pour clean water over you and I shall give you a new heart.
Ps 41:3, 5; 42:3, 4: R. Like a deer that longs for running streams, my soul longs for you, my God.

Rom 6:3-11: Christ, having been raised from the dead, will never die again.
Ps 117:1-2, 16-17, 22-23: R. Alleluia. Alleluia. Alleluia.

Luke 24:1-12 (JB)    "Why look among the dead for someone who is alive?"

Image Credit:  https://creator.nightcafe.studio/creation/sCK2DvPfb7MekaYpAAeA/a-catholic-priest-dressed-in-white-chasuble-and-vestments-carries-the-large-lit-easter-candle-into-t?ru=Paul-Evangelion    
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Christ is Risen!    He is Risen indeed.   Christ is risen; as he said!!  

These texts, ever ancient but also ever new, they all remind us of God's loving faithfulness and his presence with us and in us through humanity's long history. If God is with us, what have we to fear? Who can be against us, as Saint Paul says so beautifully? Christ has promised us, as God the Son, to be faithful to us and he has shown this faithfulness throughout all of human history and so wonderfully he has shown his complete unity with us through his ministry on earth, his teaching, his healing, his including, his mercy, his suffering, his death and his resurrection. Christ unites himself to all who suffer, especially the most poor and those most bowed down or mistreated.

 

Jesus is risen and alive and he lives in the hearts and lives of all who are downtrodden and mistreated by the world and all its cruelties. Christ is with us and in those who suffer and he takes this suffering onto himself and carries us with him. Today we celebrate that our Lord Jesus is risen and he has defeated the power of destruction and transformed our world forever.

 

At Easter, our Lord's resurrection sends out the most wonderful message to the world. People who are struggling and who feel hopeless, those who feel they'll never be good enough or worthy enough, those who fear they can't be forgiven, today's feast says yes. The love and dignity that God intends for each and every one of his beloved daughters and sons, this dignity, this love, this life never ends.

 

It is permanent. It's a quality that is imprinted in our very soul. Our value and the worth of every person cannot be destroyed or defeated even by the worst that others' wrongdoings or lack of respect and reverence can try to wreak.

 

And the harm that people can do in this world is still enormous. That is true. But God has the last and final right of reply and God's reply is much louder than anything else anyone can do and say.

 

Our Lord's resurrection sends a message to all the world that anyone who suffers matters greatly to the Lord and God will not forget them and will not fail to give them and to restore to them the dignity that the world so often denied them. Hatred, violence, failure to give people the dignity and care they need, these things God does not countenance and they will not last. Our God of faithfulness and justice, our Lord Jesus has definitively and permanently thrown in his lot with us and promises to bring us through to where he has gone ahead of us.

 

Meanwhile, we're made bold in our determination to stand up for those who suffer. We join with Christ in calling out for respect for those who have not been given it and we are emboldened by Christ's life, death and resurrection to do everything and anything in our power to give practical help and care to those in need. Christ shows us that all people are worth every effort and that this effort will ultimately not be in vain.

 

Even if we don't see justice done in this life, Christ will make sure that justice is done in the end. But he calls on justice to be done now, not later. No matter what the obstacles, God is with us.

 

God will never abandon us. God is at work renewing us, restoring us, vindicating those who've been mistreated and giving us new hope, new life and indescribable mercy.

 

Jesus is the unequivocal yes. The enormous and seemingly thankless and much derided cost of self-sacrifice and self-forgetting service, the cost of love and compassion, of mercy and gentleness, the cost of a generous spirit, of thinking more of others and less of ourselves is all worth it, no matter what the world says to deride it. May God bless us and renew us in this astounding love, this ever abiding faithfulness, this eternal care for each one of us. And may our lives be more and more marked by these wonderful qualities in the life, death and resurrection of Christ, with each and every new day.

 

Happy Easter.+

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References:

Fr Paul W. Kelly

Image Credit: https://creator.nightcafe.studio/creation/sCK2DvPfb7MekaYpAAeA/a-catholic-priest-dressed-in-white-chasuble-and-vestments-carries-the-large-lit-easter-candle-into-t?ru=Paul-Evangelion
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HOLY SATURDAY NIGHT – VIGIL OF EASTER . Year C - SATURDAY, 2025 (Longer Liturgy of the Easter VIGIL)

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PREFACE: Preface I of Easter
Euch prayer I

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Archive of homilies and reflections:  http://homilycatholic.blogspot.com.au
To contact Fr. Paul, please email:  paulwkelly68@gmail.com

To listen to the weekly homily audio podcast, please click this link here:  https://soundcloud.com/user-633212303/tracks


Further information relating to the audio productions linked to this Blog:
"Faith, Hope and Love - Christian worship and reflection"  - Led by Rev Paul Kelly

Prayers and chants  — Roman Missal, 3rd edition, © 2010, The International Commission on English in the liturgy. (ICEL)

Scriptures - New Revised Standard Version: © 1989,  and 2009 by the NCC-USA. (National Council of Churches of Christ - USA)

"The Psalms" ©1963, 2009,  The Grail - Collins publishers.

Prayers of the Faithful -   " Together we pray" by Robert Borg'.   E.J. Dwyer, Publishers, (1993) . (Sydney Australia).

Sung "Mass In Honour of St. Ralph Sherwin" -  By Jeffrey M. Ostrowski. The Gloria,  Copyright © 2011 ccwatershed.org.

- "Today I Arise" - For Trisha J Kelly.  Original words and music by Paul W. Kelly. Inspired by St Patrick's Prayer.  Arranged and sung, with additional lyrics by Stefan Kelk. 2019.

"Quiet Time."  Instrumental Reflection music. Written by Paul W Kelly. 1988, 2007. & This arrangement: Stefan Kelk, 2020.

Sound Engineering and editing -  P.W. Kelly.

Microphones: -      Shure MV5 Digital Condenser (USB)

Editing equipment:    NCH software - MixPad Multitrack Studio Recording Software
NCH – WavePad Audio Editing Software. Masters Edition v 12.44

Sound Processing:  iZotope RX 6 Audio Editor

[Production -  KER -  2025]
May God bless and keep you.
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