Saturday, April 04,
2015
Easter Vigil - Year B
08:30 pm Mass in Multilingual
First Reading
GENESIS 1:1, 2:2
1 In the beginning God
created heaven and earth.
2 On the seventh day
God had completed the work he had been doing. He rested on the seventh day
after all the work he had been doing.
Second Reading
GENESIS 22:1-18
1 It happened some time
later that God put Abraham to the test. 'Abraham, Abraham!' he called. 'Here I
am,' he replied.
2 God said, 'Take your
son, your only son, your beloved Isaac, and go to the land of Moriah, where you
are to offer him as a burnt offering on one of the mountains which I shall
point out to you.'
3 Early next morning
Abraham saddled his donkey and took with him two of his servants and his son
Isaac. He chopped wood for the burnt offering and started on his journey to the
place which God had indicated to him.
4 On the third day
Abraham looked up and saw the place in the distance.
5 Then Abraham said to
his servants, 'Stay here with the donkey. The boy and I are going over there;
we shall worship and then come back to you.'
6 Abraham took the wood
for the burnt offering, loaded it on Isaac, and carried in his own hands the
fire and the knife. Then the two of them set out together.
7 Isaac spoke to his
father Abraham. 'Father?' he said. 'Yes, my son,' he replied. 'Look,' he said,
'here are the fire and the wood, but where is the lamb for the burnt offering?'
8 Abraham replied, 'My
son, God himself will provide the lamb for the burnt offering.' And the two of
them went on together.
9 When they arrived at
the place which God had indicated to him, Abraham built an altar there, and
arranged the wood. Then he bound his son and put him on the altar on top of the
wood.
10 Abraham stretched out
his hand and took the knife to kill his son.
11 But the angel of
Yahweh called to him from heaven. 'Abraham, Abraham!' he said. 'Here I am,' he
replied.
12 'Do not raise your
hand against the boy,' the angel said. 'Do not harm him, for now I know you
fear God. You have not refused me your own beloved son.'
13 Then looking up,
Abraham saw a ram caught by its horns in a bush. Abraham took the ram and
offered it as a burnt offering in place of his son.
14 Abraham called this
place 'Yahweh provides', and hence the saying today: 'On the mountain Yahweh
provides.'
15 The angel of Yahweh
called Abraham a second time from heaven.
16 'I swear by my own
self, Yahweh declares, that because you have done this, because you have not
refused me your own beloved son,
17 I will shower
blessings on you and make your descendants as numerous as the stars of heaven
and the grains of sand on the seashore. Your descendants will gain possession
of the gates of their enemies.
18 All nations on earth
will bless themselves by your descendants, because you have obeyed my command.'
Third Reading
EXODUS 14:15, 15:1
15 Yahweh then said to
Moses, 'Why cry out to me? Tell the Israelites to march on.
1 It was then that
Moses and the Israelites sang this song in Yahweh's honour: I shall sing to
Yahweh, for he has covered himself in glory, horse and rider he has thrown into
the sea.
Fourth Reading
ISAIAH 54:5-14
5 For your Creator is
your husband, Yahweh Sabaoth is his name, the Holy One of Israel is your
redeemer, he is called God of the whole world.
6 Yes, Yahweh has
called you back like a forsaken, grief-stricken wife, like the repudiated wife
of his youth, says your God.
7 I did forsake you for
a brief moment, but in great compassion I shall take you back.
8 In a flood of anger,
for a moment I hid my face from you. But in everlasting love I have taken pity
on you, says Yahweh, your redeemer.
9 For me it will be as
in the days of Noah when I swore that Noah's waters should never flood the
world again. So now I swear never to be angry with you and never to rebuke you
again.
10 For the mountains may
go away and the hills may totter, but my faithful love will never leave you, my
covenant of peace will never totter, says Yahweh who takes pity on you.
11 Unhappy creature,
storm-tossed, unpitied, look, I shall lay your stones on agates and your
foundations on sapphires.
12 I shall make your
battlements rubies, your gateways firestone and your entire wall precious
stones.
13 All your children
will be taught by Yahweh and great will be your children's prosperity.
14 In saving justice you
will be made firm, free from oppression: you will have nothing to fear; free
from terror: it will not approach you.
Fifth Reading
ISAIAH 55:1-11
1 Oh, come to the water
all you who are thirsty; though you have no money, come! Buy and eat; come, buy
wine and milk without money, free!
2 Why spend money on
what cannot nourish and your wages on what fails to satisfy? Listen carefully
to me, and you will have good things to eat and rich food to enjoy.
3 Pay attention, come
to me; listen, and you will live. I shall make an everlasting covenant with you
in fulfilment of the favours promised to David.
4 Look, I have made him
a witness to peoples, a leader and lawgiver to peoples.
5 Look, you will summon
a nation unknown to you, a nation unknown to you will hurry to you for the sake
of Yahweh your God, because the Holy One of Israel has glorified you.
6 Seek out Yahweh while
he is still to be found, call to him while he is still near.
7 Let the wicked abandon
his way and the evil one his thoughts. Let him turn back to Yahweh who will
take pity on him, to our God, for he is rich in forgiveness;
8 for my thoughts are
not your thoughts and your ways are not my ways, declares Yahweh.
9 For the heavens are as
high above earth as my ways are above your ways, my thoughts above your
thoughts.
10 For, as the rain and
the snow come down from the sky and do not return before having watered the
earth, fertilising it and making it germinate to provide seed for the sower and
food to eat,
11 so it is with the
word that goes from my mouth: it will not return to me unfulfilled or before
having carried out my good pleasure and having achieved what it was sent to do.
Sixth Reading
BARUCH 3:9-15, 32,
4:4
9 Listen, Israel, to
commands that bring life; hear, and learn what knowledge means.
10 Why, Israel, why are
you in the country of your enemies, growing older and older in an alien land,
11 defiling yourselves
with the dead, reckoned with those who go to Sheol?
12 It is because you
have forsaken the fountain of wisdom!
13 Had you walked in the
way of God, you would be living in peace for ever.
14 Learn where knowledge
is, where strength, where understanding, and so learn where length of days is,
where life, where the light of the eyes and where peace.
15 But who has found out
where she lives, who has entered her treasure house?
32 But the One who
knows all discovers her, he has grasped her with his own intellect, he has set
the earth firm for evermore and filled it with four-footed beasts,
4 Israel, blessed are
we: what pleases God has been revealed to us!
Seventh Reading
EZEKIEL 36:16-28
16 The word of Yahweh
was addressed to me as follows,
17 'Son of man, the
members of the House of Israel used to live in their own territory, but they
defiled it by their conduct and actions; to me their conduct was as unclean as
a woman's menstruation.
18 I then vented my fury
on them because of the blood they shed in the country and the foul idols with
which they defiled it.
19 I scattered them
among the nations and they were dispersed throughout the countries. I sentenced
them as their conduct and actions deserved.
20 They have profaned my
holy name among the nations where they have gone, so that people say of them,
"These are the people of Yahweh; they have been exiled from his
land."
21 But I have been
concerned about my holy name, which the House of Israel has profaned among the
nations where they have gone.
22 And so, say to the
House of Israel, "The Lord Yahweh says this: I am acting not for your
sake, House of Israel, but for the sake of my holy name, which you have
profaned among the nations where you have gone.
23 I am going to display
the holiness of my great name, which has been profaned among the nations, which
you have profaned among them. And the nations will know that I am Yahweh --
declares the Lord Yahweh -- when in you I display my holiness before their
eyes.
24 For I shall take you
from among the nations and gather you back from all the countries, and bring
you home to your own country.
25 I shall pour clean
water over you and you will be cleansed; I shall cleanse you of all your filth
and of all your foul idols.
26 I shall give you a
new heart, and put a new spirit in you; I shall remove the heart of stone from
your bodies and give you a heart of flesh instead.
27 I shall put my spirit
in you, and make you keep my laws, and respect and practice my judgments.
28 You will live in the
country which I gave your ancestors. You will be my people and I shall be your
God.
Eight Reading
ROMANS 6:3-11
3 You cannot have
forgotten that all of us, when we were baptised into Christ Jesus, were
baptised into his death.
4 So by our baptism
into his death we were buried with him, so that as Christ was raised from the
dead by the Father's glorious power, we too should begin living a new life.
5 If we have been
joined to him by dying a death like his, so we shall be by a resurrection like
his;
6 realising that our
former self was crucified with him, so that the self which belonged to sin
should be destroyed and we should be freed from the slavery of sin.
7 Someone who has died,
of course, no longer has to answer for sin.
8 But we believe that,
if we died with Christ, then we shall live with him too.
9 We know that Christ
has been raised from the dead and will never die again. Death has no power over
him any more.
10 For by dying, he is
dead to sin once and for all, and now the life that he lives is life with God.
11 In the same way, you
must see yourselves as being dead to sin but alive for God in Christ Jesus.
Gospel Reading
MARK 16:1-7
1 When the Sabbath was
over, Mary of Magdala, Mary the mother of James, and Salome, bought spices with
which to go and anoint him.
2 And very early in the
morning on the first day of the week they went to the tomb when the sun had
risen.
3 They had been saying
to one another, 'Who will roll away the stone for us from the entrance to the
tomb?'
4 But when they looked
they saw that the stone -- which was very big -- had already been rolled back.
5 On entering the tomb
they saw a young man in a white robe seated on the right-hand side, and they
were struck with amazement.
6 But he said to them,
'There is no need to be so amazed. You are looking for Jesus of Nazareth, who
was crucified: he has risen, he is not here. See, here is the place where they
laid him.
7 But you must go and
tell his disciples and Peter, "He is going ahead of you to Galilee; that
is where you will see him, just as he told you." '
“The
Gospel of the Lord”
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