Saturday, April 4, 2015

Easter Vigil

The year before she died, our mother and I watched some Youtubes of liturgies of various Orthodox and Catholic churches, those in communion with Rome and those not in communion with Rome.  I'd started listening to them out of curiosity about different chant traditions.   I showed them to her when I noticed how, even though I had no idea what was being said in languages I had absolutely no knowledge of, I could figure out parts of the liturgy that corresponded to the familiar Catholic mass.  I knew from reading Willi Apel's and others books about Gregorian Chant that a lot of the parts of that liturgy were very ancient but didn't really appreciate how true that was before watching those videos from Orthodox congregations in Europe, Asia Africa, and North America singing in Syriac, Old Slavonic, various other Eastern European, Asian and African languages, some modern, some in old languages used for nothing but the liturgy.  Around the world, in places as unexpected (to me) as Korea where I hadn't known there were Orthodox Christians.


Our mother was as surprised as I was to be able to figure out what was going on at times, even in the expected order during the liturgy,  even though she had no more understanding of the languages than I did.   You don't usually expect to be moved in that way by watching Youtubes but it was quite an amazing experience.   The depth of connection to people we didn't even know existed, though that commonality was, perhaps, something of a mystical experience.  And the sense of connection can go much farther and much deeper than that, in the present time and for all time.

The modern Catholic Easter Vigil liturgy, full of texts from the Jewish scriptures, is the deepest and most comprehensive liturgy of the entire year.   Beginning with the lighting of a new fire and its spread on candles through the congregation, the recitation of the the Bible story of creation, the story of Abraham and Isaac, The call to Moses and the liberation of the children of Israel from slavery in Egypt, though the prophets and their radical vision of justice based on the equal status of all people to baptism - the baptism of new Christians is one of the most ancient of all Pascal practices - to the account of the Resurrection of Jesus, this year from the earliest and most plain spoken of the Gospels, Mark.   I can't be there but I can read the texts and I can remember and think about what it means.

 Easter Vigil is the first time since the beginning of Lent when the word "Alleluia" appears in the liturgy, chanted three times before the gospel is read.   Maybe you have to have been raised in a Church with that tradition but it's one of the most deeply emotional experiences there are, one many during this liturgy. So, that's how I'll end.  Alleluia.

1 comment:

  1. I used to use a form of the Easter Vigil liturgy (probably similar to the modern Catholic liturgy; my version came from the UCC Book of Worship) on Easter Sunday. The church was dark and silent, no paraments and I wore no stole; no candles, no lilies (which always upset people at first). I brought in a tall candle, the "Christ Candle" (a novelty to a Protestant church) and read the liturgy of light. The first 10-15 minutes were in a space lit only by the windows, and no sounds except spoken words. When it came time to declare Christ risen, the organ would thunder an Easter hymn as the lights came up, the white paraments came out, the lilies appeared, and spirits (I always hoped), rose.

    There were, as you say, several more readings from the Hebrew scriptures, recalling the salvation stories throughout history, leading to the gospel story of Easter morning. There was a service of water (renewal of baptismal vows by all present), a service of word (preaching), a service of the eucharist.

    It was my longest service of the year, and my favorite. Nobody complained about the length (whereas if I ran 4 minutes over any other Sunday, I heard about it for weeks), or about the absence of flowers when they came in.

    I have to admit I miss it terribly, if only because of the spiritual renewal it never failed to give me. I hate to be the center of attention, I don't like to stand up in public, but I miss leading worship. It was, for me, a very vivid and incarnated form of prayer.

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