The Easter Vigil was celebrated in St. Peter’s Basilica with an atmospheric celebration to commemorate the resurrection of Jesus Christ. At the end of the sermon, Pope Francis addressed Ivan Fedorov, the mayor of the southern Ukrainian city of Melitopol, who was a guest in the front row. “We all pray with you and for you,” said Francis, “in this darkness in which you live, the darkness of war, of cruelty”. He encouraged the Ukrainians. Fedorov was kidnapped by the Russians during the war and only released in the course of a prisoner exchange. He was a guest at the Vatican together with parliamentarians. Francis concluded his homily with the phrase “Christ is risen” in Ukrainian.
For the first time in his pontificate, the 85-year-old Argentinian refrained from leading the most important service of the church year himself; this was taken over by Cardinal Dean Giovanni Battista Re. Francis, who has already had many events this Holy Week and is also plagued by knee pain, followed the mass mostly sitting on an armchair in front of the around 5,500 believers. In addition to the sermon, he baptized seven adults. The resurrection of Jesus Christ after his death on the cross is celebrated on the Holy Night before Easter Sunday.
On this Easter night, according to the Pope, “the nights of war were traversed by luminous traces of death”. To emerge from this darkness one must open oneself to the hope of God. “We cannot celebrate Easter,” the Church leader warned, “if we continue to remain in death; if we remain prisoners of the past; if we do not have the courage to allow God to forgive us, to change us with the works of evil to break.” This applies not only to wars and conflicts, Francis continued. “A Christianity that seeks the Lord among the relics of the past and imprisons him in the tomb of habit is a Christianity without Easter,” he warned. Every time someone claims to have “understood everything about God, to be able to fit him into schemes”, the angel at the grave says: “He is not here!” It is just as inadmissible “to seek God only in a temporary feeling or in a moment of need, in order to then push him aside in concrete situations and decisions of everyday life”. Instead, should Christians take to the streets of the world “without fear, tactics, or opportunism,” the church must “only desire to bring the joy of the gospel to all.”
The ceremony traditionally began with the procession into the dark cathedral behind the Easter candle, where the candles of the priests and believers in St. Peter’s Basilica are lit to the call “Lumen Christi” (Light of Christ). On Sunday, from 10 a.m., the big Easter mass will take place on St. Peter’s Square in front of tens of thousands of believers. Afterwards, at 12 noon, Francis will proclaim his Easter message and bestow the traditional “Urbi et Orbi” blessing on the city and the world.