Cardinal Pizzaballa: 'The Word of God resounds louder than any silence'

“Easter does not begin with a proclamation of victory, but with listening to a story: a story that confronts death to reach life.”

With these words, the Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem, Cardinal Pierbattista Pizzaballa, recalled the passage through darkness necessary to reach the Resurrection, in his homily for the Easter Vigil celebration that he presided over on the morning of Saturday, April 4, in the Basilica of the Holy Sepulchre.

Given security restrictions, only a few people took part in the liturgy, including the Franciscan friars of the Custody of the Holy Land. They live in the convent of the Holy Sepulchre, called by local Christians “the Church of the Resurrection.”

“The doors are still closed. The silence is almost absolute, broken perhaps by the distant sound of what war continues to sow in this holy and torn land,” Cardinal Pizzaballa began, adding that in this very place “the Word of God resounds louder than any silence.”

The Cardinal explained that the faith of the Christian community in the Holy Land is “a fragile faith that has been tested, perhaps weary… yet still standing,” not because of their own strength but “because Someone sustains us here.”

“God did not choose an escape route,” he said, “but decided to enter the human condition in its most profound reality, taking upon Himself all the dimensions of human existence, including that which we unfortunately experience often today in a violent way: pain and death.”