Homily: Easter Vigil in the Holy Night of Easter
Matthew 28:1–10
4 April 2026
Fr. Ricky Cañet Montañez, AA
Are there some of us here who are afraid of the dark? Darkness can be scary and uncomfortable… and I don’t just mean the kind we experienced earlier when the lights were turned off. I am talking about the kind of darkness many of us carry quietly: a worry we cannot fix, a sin we keep returning to, a heaviness we cannot explain. The kind where we seem okay on the outside… but inside, something feels heavy. It is into that darkness that the Easter proclamation breaks in with startling simplicity: “He is not here; for He has been raised” (Matthew 28:6). The Risen Christ is, for us, the brightest light—piercing through and dispelling our fears.
There is, however, a strange aspect to the story. The angel says: “He is going before you to Galilee; there you will see Him” (Matthew 28:7). If this were happening today, perhaps we would have preferred to hear something like: “Jesus will meet us in the Church,” or “Jesus will meet us when our life is already in order.” After all, don’t we usually prepare ourselves before going to church? Don’t we often think that only when everything in our life is okay can we truly face God? Jesus seems to believe otherwise. We are told that He goes ahead to Galilee—where life is ordinary, messy, unfinished. It is not a holy place, but it is where the disciples first followed Him… and where they also failed Him. It is where Peter once said, “Lord, I will follow you anywhere,” and later said, “I do not know the man” (cf. Matthew 26:33, 69–75). In other words, Galilee is not where everything is right—it is where everything is still becoming. And that is precisely why Jesus goes there.
The truth is, many of us are waiting to “fix” our lives before we come closer to God. We tell ourselves, “When I’ve changed… when I’ve become more prayerful… when my life is already in order—then I will come closer.” We feel ashamed of the state of our hearts, and so we hesitate to approach Him. However, Easter challenges that way of thinking and it invites us to see differently. Instead of waiting for us to improve, Jesus goes ahead of us—into our current situation, our real life, our unfinished story. In fact, if Jesus waited for us to be perfect before meeting us, perhaps He would have no one to meet. We would all still be “on the way”—still buffering, still loading… as if the signal of our life is weak.
Easter, nevertheless tells us something beautiful: God does not wait at the finish line. He meets us on the road and chooses to accompany us along the way—whether we sprint or fall. And He is there to lift us up and encourage us to keep going.
“He is going before us to Galilee”—this should be a great comfort to us. It means He is already there: in our less-than-ideal family situations, in our struggles that seem to repeat, in our ordinary routines that feel nothing special. He is there—in the things we go through again and again, in the simplicity of our daily lives, even in our repeated mistakes. He is already there. That is our Galilee.
And sometimes we lose sight of Him—not because He is gone…He is absent, but because we are looking where He is not. We look for Him only in big, dramatic moments—the kind that give us goosebumps or bring us to tears. All the while, He is quietly waiting in the ordinary. We expect Him in perfection, when in fact He is already present in our imperfection.
Going back to our Gospel tonight, notice this: the women were afraid. The disciples were confused. No one had everything figured out. Yet, the message given to them was clear: Go! Return! Begin again! And there—you will see Him (cf. Matthew 28:8–10).
My dear friends, Easter is not just the story of a tomb that became empty. It is the story of a life that can begin again. It is the assurance that no failure is final, no darkness is permanent, and no story is beyond redemption. Yes, Christ is risen—not only in glory, but in the unfinished story of our lives. Here and now.
Happy Easter, everyone!
Sunday Gospel Reflections 