'… Go And Tell The Good News'
As he concluded his homily during the April 15 Easter Vigil Mass at St. Benedict Cathedral in Evansville, Bishop Charles C. Thompson encourages those in attendance to be witnesses – not unlike the first witnesses to Jesus’ resurrection.
‘This is the ultimate joy of the gospel because we have come to believe in the witness of those first disciples,” he said. “We gather to rejoice and take up the mantle of missionary discipleship. In dying a rising Jesus has won victory for us over sin and death. It is for us to go and tell the Good news.”
The bishop talked about life as “a series of dying and rising. Dying to self is an ongoing struggle, up to the moment of earthly death,” he said. “The ultimate rising, of course, is eternal life. This notion is central to the celebration of the sacraments of initiation we celebrate tonight – baptism, confirmation and the Eucharist.”
Across the world, the Easter Vigil Mass on Holy Saturday includes the baptism and confirmation of those coming into full communion with the Catholic Church.
