Easter Vigil at a Catholic church is an amazing and rather long event, but I'll try my best to keep this short.
At the end of Good Friday the church was dark and bare. As we entered the church on Holy Saturday night (holding vigil for the resurrection on Easter morning) the church was still dark, but there were flowers on the altar, and we were each given a candle. About 15 minutes before Mass began, we gathered outside around a bonfire. The celebration began when the priest blessed the bonfire, and using that fire, lit what is know as the Easter Candle, a huge candle which represents the light of God present in the Church. It is lit during the Easter season (50 days after Easter), and also during Baptisms when the child is given a candle lit from the Easter candle representing the light of God coming through the Church and into the child's life. But back to the story. Once the Easter candle is lit on Easter Vigil, the flame is passed around until all the faithful are holding the light of Christ. And then we processed into the darkness of the Church, where a man sang an acclamation of Jesus' glorious defeat of death. How did Jesus defeat death? Without going into atonement theology, let me say that after Jesus died he descended into Hell (or wherever the good souls who died before Jesus were), then carried the souls of the blessed up into Heaven, opening the gates for all of us. Disclaimer: that was super-simplified, and not necessarily true, nor representative of anyone's (including the author) actual beliefs. Regardless of how it actually happened, we were gathered to celebrate God/Jesus saving us.
After 40 days of solemn fasting and preparation, we burst into song with the Gloria, which praises the glory of God (but not Bahá'u'lláh), and is not sung throughout Lent. We then sat and listened to nine readings from the Bible which outline the history of how God saved humanity, also known as Salvation History. The readings were the Creation Story, Abraham and Isaac, Moses parting the Red Sea, God making a covenant with Israel, God's mercy being available to all, Wisdom calling for us to love Her, God promising redemption, Baptism as an joining in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus, and finally, the story of the women finding the empty tomb.
My personal favorite this year was the story of Moses parting the Red Sea, which was danced by a group of women. The dance incorporated elements from the Jewish Seder meal (which my awesome Jewish friend Hannah skipped to come to church with me!) such as asking "why is this night different from the rest?". Instead of ending with the Egyptians drowning in the Red Sea, the women extended the story to include a Midrash (Midrash = Jewish texts which expand and interpret the stories of the Tanakh (Torah (books of Moses), Nevi'im (prophets), and Ketuvim(writings))) about the sorrow God and the Israelites felt at the death of so many of God's children being killed. Instead of responding to this reading with a Psalm as we did for every other reading, we responded with silence.
Besides reading a lot from the Bible, the Easter Vigil Mass also welcomes new members into the Church. Today to join the Catholic Church one must go through something known as the Rite of Christian Initiation of Adults, which I know almost nothing about. But back in the day (like Roman times) this period of preparation was the 40 days before Easter. Eventually not only new Christians observed these 40 days of preparation, but even life-long Christians began preparing for Easter, and the season of Lent was born. This year, there was one adult who joined the Catholic Church at my parish. This woman recited a short list of baptismal vows, and then had water poured over her head three times while the priest baptized her in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. After being baptized, she was confirmed, the process through which one receives the Holy Spirit. To do so, the priest used sacred chrism oil to trace a cross on the woman's forehead while saying, "be sealed with the gift of the Holy Spirit." After the woman was welcomed into the Church, each of us was invited to come forward and renew our baptismal promises by rinsing our hands or face from a basin of holy water.
After that the Mass preceded as normal, well the entire congregation sang the Consecration, which is not normal for a Catholic church, but tradition at St. Frances Cabrini. By the end of the Mass, it was nearly midnight, however we were not tired, but rejuvenated by the excitement of Easter. After the long preparation and expectation of Lent, the light and joy of Easter had finally come.
At the end of Good Friday the church was dark and bare. As we entered the church on Holy Saturday night (holding vigil for the resurrection on Easter morning) the church was still dark, but there were flowers on the altar, and we were each given a candle. About 15 minutes before Mass began, we gathered outside around a bonfire. The celebration began when the priest blessed the bonfire, and using that fire, lit what is know as the Easter Candle, a huge candle which represents the light of God present in the Church. It is lit during the Easter season (50 days after Easter), and also during Baptisms when the child is given a candle lit from the Easter candle representing the light of God coming through the Church and into the child's life. But back to the story. Once the Easter candle is lit on Easter Vigil, the flame is passed around until all the faithful are holding the light of Christ. And then we processed into the darkness of the Church, where a man sang an acclamation of Jesus' glorious defeat of death. How did Jesus defeat death? Without going into atonement theology, let me say that after Jesus died he descended into Hell (or wherever the good souls who died before Jesus were), then carried the souls of the blessed up into Heaven, opening the gates for all of us. Disclaimer: that was super-simplified, and not necessarily true, nor representative of anyone's (including the author) actual beliefs. Regardless of how it actually happened, we were gathered to celebrate God/Jesus saving us.
After 40 days of solemn fasting and preparation, we burst into song with the Gloria, which praises the glory of God (but not Bahá'u'lláh), and is not sung throughout Lent. We then sat and listened to nine readings from the Bible which outline the history of how God saved humanity, also known as Salvation History. The readings were the Creation Story, Abraham and Isaac, Moses parting the Red Sea, God making a covenant with Israel, God's mercy being available to all, Wisdom calling for us to love Her, God promising redemption, Baptism as an joining in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus, and finally, the story of the women finding the empty tomb.
My personal favorite this year was the story of Moses parting the Red Sea, which was danced by a group of women. The dance incorporated elements from the Jewish Seder meal (which my awesome Jewish friend Hannah skipped to come to church with me!) such as asking "why is this night different from the rest?". Instead of ending with the Egyptians drowning in the Red Sea, the women extended the story to include a Midrash (Midrash = Jewish texts which expand and interpret the stories of the Tanakh (Torah (books of Moses), Nevi'im (prophets), and Ketuvim(writings))) about the sorrow God and the Israelites felt at the death of so many of God's children being killed. Instead of responding to this reading with a Psalm as we did for every other reading, we responded with silence.
Besides reading a lot from the Bible, the Easter Vigil Mass also welcomes new members into the Church. Today to join the Catholic Church one must go through something known as the Rite of Christian Initiation of Adults, which I know almost nothing about. But back in the day (like Roman times) this period of preparation was the 40 days before Easter. Eventually not only new Christians observed these 40 days of preparation, but even life-long Christians began preparing for Easter, and the season of Lent was born. This year, there was one adult who joined the Catholic Church at my parish. This woman recited a short list of baptismal vows, and then had water poured over her head three times while the priest baptized her in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. After being baptized, she was confirmed, the process through which one receives the Holy Spirit. To do so, the priest used sacred chrism oil to trace a cross on the woman's forehead while saying, "be sealed with the gift of the Holy Spirit." After the woman was welcomed into the Church, each of us was invited to come forward and renew our baptismal promises by rinsing our hands or face from a basin of holy water.
After that the Mass preceded as normal, well the entire congregation sang the Consecration, which is not normal for a Catholic church, but tradition at St. Frances Cabrini. By the end of the Mass, it was nearly midnight, however we were not tired, but rejuvenated by the excitement of Easter. After the long preparation and expectation of Lent, the light and joy of Easter had finally come.
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