April 14

In this holy night, the Church attempts to tell us in her own language—the language of symbols—the meaning of the Resurrection, the mystery celebrated in the Easter vigil. Three great symbols dominate the liturgy of this night of the Resurrection: light, water, and “the new song”, that is, the Alleluia. As we wait in the night-darkened church for the Easter candle to be lighted, we should experience a kind of consolation from the knowledge that God knows how dark this night is. In fact, he has already struck his light in the middle of it: “Light of Christ”—“Thanks be to God.” The night enables us to realize what the light really is. It is brightness, warmth, life; it is a glimpse of the great eschatological feast of light, an anticipation of God’s wedding feast.… The second Easter symbol is the water with which the light is, as it were, wedded in the threefold immersion of the Easter candle. The water symbolizes all that is precious on earth. The whole mystery of water is present in the Easter celebration, enclosed in it, yet, at the same time, raised to a higher level without losing any of its original state. For the Easter vigil tells us that a far more precious stream than ever existed on earth has issued from the pierced side of Jesus (Jn 4:10; 7:37; 19:30). The Cross of Christ is in essence the radical sacrifice of himself. In Baptism this water flows from the Cross of Christ through the whole Church as a mighty stream that “makes glad the city of God” (Ps 46:4). We bathe in this stream and are reborn. When the paschal candle is dipped into the basin of water and heaven and earth are thus linked in symbolic marriage, the action may well suggest another thought. It may well be saying that the meager fruitfulness of this earth will one day be considered worthy to be incorporated into the great mystery of life in the Kingdom of God.… The third Easter symbol is “the new song”—the Alleluia. Granted, we shall not sing this new song in its fullness until we are in the “new world”, until God calls us by a “new name” (Rev 2:17), until everything has been made new. But we are permitted to anticipate something of this newness in the great joy of the Easter vigil. For singing, and especially the singing of the new song, is ultimately an outward __EXPRESSION__ of joy. When we say that the blessed in heaven are singing, we are using an image to express the joy that permeates their whole being. For singing symbolizes the fact that an individual has left behind the boundaries of what is merely rational and has arrived at a kind of ecstasy. For he would have no need to sing to express what is merely rational.… The Alleluia is just the nonverbal __EXPRESSION__ of a joy that no longer needs words because it transcends all words.

From: Dogma und Verkündigung, pp. 337ff.

 Ratzinger, J. (1992). Co-Workers of the Truth: Meditations for Every Day of the Year. (I. Grassl, Ed., M. F. McCarthy & L. Krauth, Trans.) (pp. 123–124). San Francisco: Ignatius Press.