By: Amelia McDaniel, Lay Associate for Christian Formation
I speak to you in the name of the Good Shepherd whose great love brings us over into new life.
I fainted at the first Easter Vigil service I attended. This would in any circumstance be a problem, but I was also acolyting and holding a torch. My friend, Patrick, and I were standing on either side of the priest as he read by candlelight these stories of our faith we have just heard told by some of our parishioners. I locked my knees at some point. That was my mistake. Thankfully the whole thing wasn’t too dramatic, and no hair was burned. And thankfully this memory has not colored my love for this service.
This ancient service is so beautiful. In the early church this is the night that those who wished to become Christians were baptized. There are several more readings that can be included in this service, each of them telling of God’s saving love for humanity and all of creation. And although we are experiencing this service differently tonight these stories of our faith stand firm and solid and true. Their truth has knees that do not lock. The truth they tell has spoken to many generations of believers before us who relied upon God’s never-failing love. They spoke to the believers in times of want and in times of plenty. And they speak to us.
Tonight, I find myself hearing to these stories with a “listening heart” as my younger learners and I would say. Although I don’t think I had fully recognized it, I had become agile at least attempting to avoid the fragility and tenuousness of this life through the notions of invincibility and self-sufficiency. But, in these last few weeks as the world has so rapidly changed around us, my heart too has had to change.