“Hope loves what is not yet, but what will be”
Homily of Bishop Kevin Doran at the Easter Vigil Mass in Sligo Cathedral Parish 19th April, 2025
“God saw all he had made, and indeed it was very good”.
We heard these words at the end of the first reading this evening. I’m not sure if you have every given any thought to the fact that, six times in the first chapter of the Book of Genesis, we are told that God saw what he had done, “and it was good”.
That is a pretty powerful statement about the goodness of creation, and it is rooted in the belief that, since God is good, nothing can come from God that is not good.
Mediaeval philosophers, like St Thomas Aquinas, said that everything, in so far as it exists, is good. To be is to be good. Science helps us to understand that everything in the natural world has its place and its purpose in an ordered universe, even the creepy crawlies and the bacteria and other things that we don’t particularly like.
So what went wrong? The Scriptures tell us that, wherever evil makes its appearance in creation, it happens because the connection with God is broken. It is replaced by pride and selfish ambition, which leads to conflict and destruction.
We we tend to think of scientists as people who change the world. But science is really about discovering the many possibilities built into the natural order. Think of how many scientists are telling us these days that, if we are to save the universe, we need to respect the natural order. There is really no conflict between faith and science.
But what about sickness and death? How do we make sense of the fact that the human body, like every other organism, breaks down. Pope Francis himself has written about this in recent days. “Among the many questions that man has posed throughout history” he says, “one above all has always found an uncertain answer ….that is life beyond death. What will become of man after death? What will become of me?” “We are all aware” he continues “that no one escapes the mystery of death…… The multiple questions that arise from this event cannot but call into question that virtue which, more than any other, allows every man and woman to look beyond the human limit: hope!”
“God saw all that he made and indeed it was very good”. What I find fascinating is that these words, at the beginning of the Bible, were written by people of faith, long after the creation, by which time the goodness of creation was already obscured by sin, just as we see it today. I can’t help thinking that these words are not just a statement of faith.
They are also an expression of the kind of hope, which keeps us going, even in the face of all the odds. It is a hope that, even in the face of death, there is a future, when every tear will be wiped away.
Our Vigil this evening is a celebration of our faith that, from the first days until now, God has never ceased in his effort to renew his creation, beginning with his open invitation to us, human beings, to come back to him with all our hearts. The virtue of faith, as Pope Benedict wrote, is closely connected with the virtue of hope. You could say that hope is faith, asit looks to the future. Because of our faith in the goodness of God, we can look the future with hope.
As you possibly know, the full Easter vigil liturgy has nine readings, but I invite you to think back on the ones we have heard this evening. The psalm which followed the first reading is a celebration of creation, and our response was an appeal to God to send forth his Spirit and renew the face of the earth.
In their time of tribulation, God never forgets his people. Even when the media moves on and when the politicians prevaricate, He is close to the broken hearted. This is expressed inoursecind reading, when God calls the Hebrews out of slavery and reveals himself to them in the wilderness. He forges a new relationship with them, making a covenant with them.
In the reading from Isaiah, once again, we meet a God who wants to nourish us and give us life. In the account of creation, we read, over and over: “God said …. and so it was”. The word of God is a creative word. Now he tells us: “Pay attention, come to me; listen, and your soul will live….With you I will make an everlasting covenant”. Then he assures us that “(just), as the rain and the snow come down from the heavens and do not return without watering the earth, making it yield and giving growth to provide seed for the sower and bread for the eating, so the word that goes from my mouth does not return to me empty, without carrying out my will and succeeding in what it was sent to do.” Words that nourish our hope”.
The Gospel, of course, presents us with the amazing mystery of Jesus who died and is risen, having overcome once and for all the power of sin and death. All we need now is to enter into the mystery, by freely accepting Jesus as our Lord and Saviour.
At the beginning of our New Testament reading this evening, St. Paul explains that: “When we were baptised in Christ Jesus we were baptised in his death; in other words, when we were baptised we went into the tomb with him and joined him in death, so that as Christ was raised from the dead by the Father’s glory, we too might live a new life”. As you probably know, in ancient times, when people were Baptised, they were fully immersed in the water. St Paul saw a certain symbolism in this. Going down into the water was like going into the grave. The point, as far as Paul was concerned was that, in Baptism, we come out of the water, already alive with the new life of the Resurrection. This is why we can live, and even die, with hope in our hearts.
It would not be reasonable or honest, of course, to suggest that, because of hope, all our troubles disappear. Life can sometimes be very difficult and the virtue of hope can, at times, seem very fragile and uncertain.
I mentioned earlier that Pope Francis had written about hope in recent days. He quotes the French writer Charles Péguy, who died in battle during the first world war. Péguy’s best known work is a long poem called “The Portal of Hope”. In it, he says: “Hope is a little girl, nothing at all…. And yet it is this little girl who will endure worlds. This little girl, nothing at all….. She loves what is not yet, but will be. In future time and in eternity.
This image speaks of the little girl speaks to me. I think the celebration of Easter reveals that “little girl” inside each of us and invites us to make space for her to grow. It invites us to nourish that same hope in others, and never to undermine it. Then the “little girl” will not only carry our faith, but she will also give us confidence to love in the knowledge that we ourselves are loved.