EASTER VIGIL (YEAR B) - APRIL 04, 2015

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”