THE EASTER VIGIL
THE LITURGY in the form revised by Pope Pius XII in the 1950’s re-introduced the time of an evening celebration, begun after dark on Holy
Saturday evening. This is considered by some –incorrectly- to be the most
popular time of the celebration for the ancients. The missal indicates that the Church in Rome
where this liturgy was customarily celebrated was that of St John Lateran. This
great basilica was previously known as the Basilica of our Saviour and is the
mother church of all Christendom. It was the first great public place of
Christian worship specifically built as such in the fourth century by the
Emperor Constantine. There it was that in the centuries following the end of
the early persecutions of Christians, the new Roman converts were publicly
baptised and initiated into the mysteries of the Church. Submerged in the water
three times, in memory of the three days of Christ in the tomb, they emerged as
new members of His Church. They had symbolically died to sin to be brought back
to new life with Him.
THE liturgy of this night is the
richest and the most lengthy of all the great ceremonies of this week. It
begins in darkness and ends in light. This darkness is symbolic as well as
real. The light in this case is not natural but is the illumination of faith,
signified by a lighted candle. We have been led out of the bondage of ignorance
and slavery to sin to the light of truth and the freedom of the children of
God. This is nothing less than an expression in visible symbols of what has
happened to us in baptism. In the early centuries, as we know from study and
research, the ceremonies of baptism usually occurred during this celebration
and were an essential part of it. All the great themes of the struggle against
evil, and death its elder child, are apparent in the rites and prayers in use
in this liturgy. This evening, I would just like briefly to mention something
about the presumed origin of some of the rites and symbols associated with this
liturgy. I am indebted to the works of Dr Heinrich Kellner, Heortology, A History of Christian Festivals
and Mgr Louis Duchesne, Christian Worship,
both written in the first decade of the 20th century, for most of
these details.
THE very first part of the Vigil,
the blessing of the new fire, was unknown in ancient Rome. Kellner says it
originated in Germany, where it was known as the “Osterfeuer” and it was
introduced into Rome by Pope Leo IV (847-855).
Duchesne however, maintains that it came from the British Isles. From
there it was brought to Germany by the
British and Irish monks who were evangelists there in the eight century. This
is certainly more likely, for the ancient Celts are renowned for their
particular devotion to fires in their pagan rites. The Easter fires were always new and lit from
new flints. Rome had its own version of the new fire. On Maundy Thursday, all
the old oil from the church lamps in the Lateran Basilica was collected into
three large vessels containing wicks, which were placed in the corner of the
church. From these vessels all the candles and other lights used at the Easter
Vigil were lighted. The ceremony of taking the light from these vessels was
always solemn, being done at the Pope’s order by a bishop or a priest.