Do not be afraid “I know that you are seeking Jesus the crucified one. He is not here…”

Huwag kayong matakot.

Alam kong hinahanap ninyo si Hesus na ipinako sa krus. Wala na siya rito.

Do not be afraid

“I know that you are seeking Jesus the crucified one. He is not here…”

I see in these two sentences a real description of this exceptional, unique, painful and full of apprehension time for everybody: the unknown and deadly enemy Covid 19.

We began this Lenten season by listening to the words of Jesus “One does not live by bread alone.” We did not image that we would experience this truth in this way! This Triduum will be unforgettable.

For almost one month we have been living together in a forced isolation, but not separated from each other and from our people. Proximity, affection, tenderness, empathy is not tied to space. On the contrary, a freer communion and friendship surprised us every single day, every moment.

We feel blessed to celebrate together, every day, and today this Easter vigil, the mother of all vigils under these circumstances of the Corona Virus. By saying “together”, we mean the concrete presence of each of us, with Brother Lucivaldo.

By saying “together” we refer first of all to the interior and concrete disposition to offer the best of ourselves, as we are: gestures of patience, attention to little details perhaps taken for granted in the past, service (the courage, the generosity and prudence to go to the market to buy food for the community; to do the cooking (by consulting our companions or YouTube), to do the laundry and the ironing with elegance, the cleaning, playing together; or someone who in his 80ies decided to learn how to use WhatsApp to communicate better and wider), closeness without words, listening, mutual help and the desire to learn from each other. We discovered unknown talents and gifts and also some defects and weakness.

This forced situation has been also a blessing to cultivate in us more humble thoughts; concrete and real ways of considering ourselves and our possibilities with a greater sense of the proportions of the necessities and problems that really matter in our life and in the life of many people, especially the poor. In these days we are experiencing that we need, in our formation, a more humble, modest and a more available way of thinking and doing.

By saying “together”, we also mean the relationship in the distance with our brothers in Project 8; with the community of our Parish, Saint Francis Xavier, along with Fr. Simone Piccolo confined in Italy, and with the community of Marikina; “together” with our companions of other Theologates (especially the one of Parma) and Novitiates; with the entire Xaverian family, in particular with those who passed away in the last 30 days and those who accompanied and served them until the last breath, with tenderness and compassion.

Through simple and well prepared gestures and symbols of the liturgical service in the community, the spirit of family, and a confident prayer on this altar of fraternal harmony (Testament Letter 9), we also offered our little contribution to the suffering of the entire humanity, embraced as one single family, ardently loved by our “common Father”, in these times of darkness, death and desperation caused by the pandemic Covid 19. A small alter, but capable of embracing the world. Our Founder says that “the missionary is the most convinced and zealous apostle of the universal brotherhood”. Non-Christians have been constantly close to our heart.  

“Together” with the names, the faces, the friendship of our parish community, Saint Francis Xavier, and all its zones that cannot celebrate together the Sunday Eucharists, the Paschal Triduum, the youths, the ates, cuyas, the choirs, the innumerable ministries, the religious sisters, the sick people to whom we used to visit to share the Gospel and the Holy Communion; those who felt alone and isolated; those who struggled for help and food; those who sent messages asking about our conditions (“Kumusta na po kayo lahat”?, Or Happy Priest day, Father), a word of comfort, a prayer for us, and those who received a word of encouragement or a prayer of intercession from us; those who - with affection simplicity and solidarity - sent some food to us; those who shared moments of Lectio Divina through Messenger, Face Book, etc., with the youths of our parish, Saint Francis Xavier; with those who shared questions and doubts regarding faith, the presence of God in our midst, Jesus and His Love in this difficult time of the Corona Virus. “Together” with the innumerable families, young people, nurses coming every Saturday and Sunday to Ayala Mall. “We miss the celebrations…” is a familiar expression we hear and read in our communications during this time. Their names, faces and names have been constantly present in our Eucharistic celebrations, in the Adoration of the Blessed Sacrament and prayers.

Tonight, from this same altar, a joyful Papuri, a heartwarming Halleluiah and a reassuring “the Lord has risen” (Siya’y muling nabuhay!), reaches out to each of them, as they are, where they are and how they are. We celebrate the mother of all vigils together with them, staying at home, with their desire, voices, tears, fears, joy and hope.

We had the physical space, the freedom and the opportunity to lit and bless the fire, the new light. We also have the holy water blessed by the Easter Candle, a dear component of the sense of trust and protection of the Filipino families. This is also the desire of many people. When we lifted up the Easter candle and sang 3 times “The light of Christ” in the darkness, we proclaimed it also for those who could not do it tonight. The Word of God is not tied to a place, but always to a living relationship.

Being an international community, “together” for us means also with our parents. We have been in touch with them during this delicate time.

The Gospel of this night makes this “togetherness”, this unity, this communion more real, closer and deeper. Today’s Gospel makes all these names and faces gather together as “one single family”.

I would like to underline some elements of the Word of God and how, particularly in this time of the distress and sorrow, where our churches are physically deserted, but our families are rediscovering themselves as domestic churches, the Lord is with us and how they have been seeking Jesus, the Crucified. In these days we have come to know, for example, that some mothers and fathers entrusted to the Lord their children, they blessed them, they prayed with them and for them, they served them (many ways to wash their feet) with their common priesthood. Their blessings, their prayers, their trust, their interiority are a real domestic liturgy, acceptable to God our Father, with the most important elements of our Faith: the Gospel and the Crucifix. The Covid 19 is “teaching” us that the Church is not only a place.

The Gospel narrates the experience of the “first” day of the week. We have some women going to the tomb (Mary Magdalene and “the other Mary”, probably the mother of James the minor and of Joses. In Mk. 15:47, “she saw where Jesus was laid”. A sort of aunty if Jesus. It means she is related to the 7^th corporal work of mercy: to bury the dead. Today, in this “the other Mary” we think and remember all those who during these Pandemic have been like “the other Mary”, helping to bury the body of many grandfathers who died of CoronaVirus, with dignity and mercy). And immediately it comes to our minds, many names of the women, the Ates of our parish, Saint Francis Xavier, and many other Filipino mothers. The protagonists of the final part of the Gospel of the Cross, in John, are women! They experience discouragement, disillusion and disappointment, but they go. They go to the tomb to do something very good, for a good deed: to “see” the tomb, to see the body of their beloved friend, crucified, who died, but He is not there. It is a big surprise! An Angel gives them the explanation of what happened. The Angel, in the Bible, is the one who announces the Word of God. Only a “messenger” of God can offer this explanation of the facts, the real one. He explains to them what happened and what they are called to do.

And while they are listening to the Word of the Angel, and what they are called to do, behold, Jesus, the Risen one, meets them on their way, and He asks them to “rejoice”. He tells them the same things of the Angel.

We can ask ourselves tonight: how do I encounter Jesus in my daily life? How do I encounter the Risen Lord in this tormented and troubled time of Covid 19? I might say: but I do not have visions, I do not have particular revelations, how can I see the Risen one, today? The Gospel is clear, the women see Jesus while listening to the Word, the Good News to what the Word is asking them to do.

The Gospel says that they come to the tomb because they desire to see Him, because they love the Lord. We share a common certainty: the desire to go to see the tomb. In the Gospel we have the Greek term Tafos (τάφος) which literally means “empty”. The other word to say tomb, instead, is Mnema (μνῆμα) which means “memory/memorial”. These women go to see what is “empty”. We also in our daily life go to see what is empty, because we feel that we will end up in the same way, because there ended up Jesus too.

This is the first level of our experience: during this difficult time, we are facing our limitations, our contradictions, our weakness, our emptiness. These women go to the tomb with only one certainty: the one whom they loved, the crucified, must be there. It is the constant desire, the need, the tension of our humanity to go to see the tomb, the emptiness.

The Gospel says that at the beginning there was a great earthquake seismos, (σεισμὸς, in English we have the word seism/seismic. But the same word is also used to describe the “quake”, seio (σείω) in the life, in the heart of the guards: “The guards were shaken with fear”.

The first quake opens the earth, and the living One comes out; the second quake shakes the guards and the Gospel says “…they became like dead men”. The same event makes us live and die. What does it mean? It means that this tomb is certainly the tomb of Jesus, but it is the “tomb”, the emptiness that we have in our hearts, in our stories, the certainty that we will end up there too.

But what does the angel do? As we know, the term “Angel” means the one who brings, announces a “word”, a “message”. What does the Word of God communicate in our lives in the “first” day of the week? We have important verbs to describe the Resurrection of Jesus: the angel approaches, rolls back the stone, sits upon it, his appearance is lightening. The Angel rolls back the stone that keeps us in our emptiness; he makes us go out to see light and upon that stone, there is a luminous life. The Word of God opens the tomb of our heart, and instead of darkness and emptiness, we experience light, life, that is, the Risen Jesus Himself. In fact, the word of the Angel is the same of the one of Jesus. By listening to the Word, we meet Jesus, we see Jesus.

“Do not be afraid” and “I know that you are seeking Jesus, the Crucified.” It is not here. Come…

The first word we hear in the mother of all vigils, is not “He has Risen” but “do not be afraid”. Why? Because this is the first thing that Adam, that is the human person, each of us, told the Lord! “I was afraid…” of your voice, of your steps, of your image, of your….

I know that you are seeking Jesus, because you love Him, says the Angel, but the One who loved you is not Here. The fundamental importance of this announcement: HE IS NOT HERE. CHRISTIANITY IS BASED ON THESE FOUR WORDS. As missionaries we know that many times the first sign of a culture is the tomb. But the Angel says: “Come, see the place…”. We are called to find Him in our life, in our daily life, in our domestic families, because He has risen. In the Gospel there is a constant invitation to come and see that the tomb is empty, that death has been overcome.

The 2020 Easter Vigil - the Corona Virus Easter vigil - too announces the Resurrection: we keep in our hearts these two short sentences: “do not be afraid” and “I know that you are seeking Jesus the Crucified”. Two statements that are very consoling. I would say the synthesis of our missionary life. Because they reveal that we are seeking Him, people are seeking Him in many ways. Maybe we are not aware of it, because of our struggles. But even more interesting and consoling is that what we are looking for is not there: “He is not here”. Even more: that place is empty.

But if it is not there, where shall we find Him? How to encounter Him?

“Go quickly and tell his disciples, He has been raised from the dead and he is going before you to Galilee; there you will see him”

For the women to encounter Jesus means to encounter their brothers and sisters. It is by going towards “the other” that we meet the Lord; it is by going towards the living that we will see the Risen Lord. By living as brothers, we experience the Son, the Father; we experience God, the fullness of life, the explosion of life. If we remain there, at the empty tomb, we will never see Him. We will never experience Resurrection, the fullness of life. Resurrection is an explosive, dynamic event: “fearful and yet overjoyed, they ran to announce this…” On this action, “Jesus met them and greeted them…” It is a poor and inaccurate translation. We have here an imperative. It is a command, not just a simple greeting (“and greeted them”) but “rejoice!” Hairete, χαίρετε (Matt. 28:9). It is the same word addressed by the Angel to Mary: Jaire, Χαῖρε (Rejoce!). Joy is faith, but faith is joy. Today the Lord is commanding us to Rejoice because He is the Life. This joy can be found only in the Lord. And this joy can be found only by going to our brothers.