O Happy Fault
Reflections on the liturgy, the Exsultet, and faults based on the Easter Vigil Mass
The Easter Vigil is the height of the liturgy, the apex of Christian worship. It is a celebration of all the Sacraments of initiation, a recapitulation of Salvation History, and an emphatic remembrance of the most crucial point in all history, The Resurrection.
There is far too much richness in this celebration to do it any justice as a whole, but there is one part that has always stuck out to me and warrants considerable reflection.
In the Exsultet, or the Easter Proclamation, there is a line that refers to Original Sin and says, “O happy fault, that earned so great, so glorious a Redeemer!” Initially it may seem strange to refer to a fault of such great consequence as “happy”, but when seen in the light of Christ it makes total sense.
When we reflect on our own lives, do we not see the same pattern emerge? The sins of our past, our human weakness, our sufferings, trials, and everything in between, all these things were sources of death on a natural level, but become sources of life on a spiritual level.
When we encounter Christ amidst all of our darkness and brokenness, the joy of meeting Our Redeemer who is “so great” and “so glorious” is so overpowering that we indeed come to see even the faults of the past as “happy.”
We would not trade a single bit of our pain and sorrow due to the overwhelming joy that comes from meeting the Lord amidst this pain and sorrow. It is another way of expressing what St. Paul wrote to the Romans, that “where sin abounds, grace abounds all the more”!
This helps us realize why it is that the Gospel writers, the original disciples, the saints that followed, and modern day believers, do not exclude or evade the traumas of their past or the very real troubles that exist within their souls, but realize that it is precisely in these faults that the glory of the Redeemer is made manifest.
And it gives us an implicit instruction for how we are to evangelize, or share the Good News with others. We are to share how the darkness of our past has been brought to light in Christ, how the darkness of the whole world is brought into the light of Our Glorious Redeemer.
Too often, we fail to see the faults as happy and how they reveal the glory of Our Redeemer and this prevents us from sharing the Good News in Truth. But we must allow the Lord to first shine His Light upon us and illuminate our darkness if we are to be light for others.
In order to let Him illuminate the darkness, we need to accept the reality of the darkness, we need to allow Him to travel with us into the depths of our souls to discover the beauty of Redemption.
It is equally as impossible to evangelize without a deep and sincere recognition of our faults as it is to evangelize without a profound sense of gratitude for these faults due to the fact that they led to an encounter with the Lord.
Lord, may we all desire to see our faults as happy, to meet you amidst our pain and sufferings, and to share with others that You are a God who brings light to darkness and heals all wounds. May we allow our souls to be crucified with You so that they can be raised with You to Eternal Life.