Recently, I came across my First Communion Certificate that had been packed away amongst my mothers memorabilia. She had kept it after I left home until she died. My First Communion was in 1953. Little did I realise how inextricably my life would be linked with the Catholic Church when I was seven years old. Twenty-five years later I served as a priest in the same Parish with the very same priest who celebrated that First Communion Mass. Such memories help us know who we are.

In Australia in 1953 the Second World War was still fresh in people's minds and the Korean War had reached a tentative armistice. In 1953 we enthusiastically celebrated Queen Elizabeth II's coronation as some needed good news. Egypt was in turmoil shaking off the shackles of Britain and trying to take over the Suez Canal. Some years later as I sat in my classroom in year six teachers warned us of a possible Third World War. In the background, far from our thoughts at the time, the colonial unrest in South East Asia was building into the Vietnam War by the time I entered the Seminary. The rest is history and not much has changed.

History is so often told in terms of its wars and disasters. Those events do shape our personal lives for better or worse and reshape nations. Many people look at all that bad news and live with a kind of fatalism: There is no changing human nature. In spite of appearances, at the heart of things, nothing gets any better. In Australia, Anzac Day is one of the ways in which we do try to make sense of it.

It was no different for ancient Israel. People often find fault in the bible for the violence and blood shed which litters its pages. What is good or uplifting in all that? What kind of God would do such things? We cannot condone those things then. Nor can we condone them today. We understand God's ways differently since Jesus. We have heard some of Israel's story in the readings tonight and throughout Lent. It is a story of human sinfulness and human failure. However, it is a story told by a people who look at those events, good and bad, and recognised a different voice speaking to them through those events. They did not always understand correctly but their faith in God having their happiness at heart grew deeper as the years passed. The bible is above all a story of God's constant faithfulness and mercy to those very ordinary people God called his own.

Like them we, or at least I myself, do find it hard to make sense of it all. The weight of all that violent history can be too much to bear. For us, the ritual and prayer, especially of Holy Week and this Easter Triduum, can do just that, however. Those celebrations say so much with, and without, words. Ashes on Ash Wednesday, palms and processions of Palm Sunday, washing feet on Holy Thursday, hammer and nails on Good Friday, fire and water and oil at the Easter Vigil, bread and wine at every Eucharist. All these things are the stuff of daily life. These celebrations which use those elements say so much about us and our past and our future. All of what we believe is contained within them. But we cannot reduce the mystery they contain to fit our limited rational minds.

Even so, what we do can still be a bit overwhelming. But from the moment we tentatively dip our toe, as it were, into the waters of Baptism, we begin to see things in a new way. We really have to let go and let the water wash over us. We have to let the Church gathered embrace us. And so let God embrace us. Then we are not so afraid of all that life can throw at us. We are not even afraid of death. As Paul says tonight in his letter to the Romans, we have already died with Christ in baptism so what need we fear of physical death? We walk a new life.

One certain thing we learn is that we cannot work it out on our own. We need each other to make this human journey even though we fight and squabble, and even though we need our own space at times. We come together each Easter and each week from our personal searching and discovery and place our lives under the prism of God's Word. By making that communion we do not lose sight of our goal.

Yes, every generation, and every individual, and every community, has to make the same journey from slavery to freedom, from darkness to light, from despair to hope, from fear to love, like the ancient Hebrews did and like Jesus did. In Jesus, crucified, risen and victorious, we believe we are assured of God's constant faithfulness and mercy to us. It takes a lifetime for each of us to make this journey both inward and outward. Sometimes our life is short, sometimes long. So let us not be impatient.

Tonight, at the Easter Vigil, we call our friends forward to dip their toes into the waters of baptism and take up this wonderful adventure of faith with us. We also call others of our friends to continue their journey with us as they are confirmed. Then all of us can make our first holy communion with them and our Lord. He is risen! Alleluia

Fr Graham