At Easter Vigil Masses in parishes across the Diocese of Palm Beach on March 30, hundreds of people were formally accepted as members of the church. At the Cathedral of St. Ignatius Loyola, Bishop Gerald M. Barbarito baptized and confirmed 13 men and women, welcomed eight into full communion through confirmation and Eucharist, and confirmed other adults as part of the rites of initiation.
The evening Mass begins outside with a fire, representing the light of Christ, which is then brought into the church with the Easter candle and candles carried by those becoming full members of the Catholic family.
“Tonight, we celebrate in the most solemn way that communion which we are as the church,” the bishop said in his homily. “We celebrate that communion in which God became one of us, gave his life upon a cross and rose from the dead in order that we might have the fullness of his life, the fullness of his forgiveness, the fullness of what we aspire to in life each and every day.”
