A lot has been packed into the Easter Vigil. As we exited after three hours on Saturday night, I asked myself: Is this truly an Easter liturgy? Or what? What do you think?
To be frank (what else), I'll venture what I think down the line of comments.
We elderly need to be accommodated. Francis is right, no liturgy should go beyond two hours.
ReplyDeleteWe do infant baptisms at Sunday Masses usually one at a time. Why not do adult baptisms at Sunday Masses, one at a time, make it more personal.
One of the things that Father Taft emphasized in his course on the Liturgical Year is that the Lord's Day is the primal feast, and that Easter is just a bigger than normal Lord's Day rather than it being a small Easter.
The Evangelicals emphasize the Lord's Day and deemphasize the liturgical year. They get much better average church attendance that way. Our is very seasonal, but averages out less.
In some past time, there was a Holy Saturday liturgy. I know about this only tangentially from studying medieval lit. Perhaps cradle Catholics remember when Holy Saturday had its own observance? Does this mean there was no vigil at one time?
ReplyDeleteJack, given the current RCIA structure, which is geared to process everybody at the same time, how would you do individual baptisms?
Jean, the Holy Saturday liturgy which was done on Saturday morning was the Easter Vigil except no one was baptized! There was the lighting of the candle, the readings (actually more of them) and the blessing of the baptismal font followed by Mass.
DeleteWell we need to evaluate the RCIA structure! I am not sure we need to process everybody at the same time.
I guess I am pretty skeptical of preparations for baptism, preparations for holy communion and preparations for confirmation. They seem to be elaborate rituals that often result in people exiting the practice of the faith.
I am sure that some people find the RCIA helpful. I do like small group faith sharing. But I am skeptical of one size fits all programs.
There's a lot of leeway in the actual rules for Easter Vigil. Ours was out in an hour and a half. If they are doing all seven of the possible OT readings it's because the pastor is choosing that option. Likewise with Baptisms, most parishes here do infant and child baptisms at Sunday Mass, or in our parish, afterwards. Most pastors I have known wouldn't encourage putting off an infant baptism until the Easter vigil, especially if the child was born several months before. If an adult requests to be baptized at another time than Easter vigil, they can be accommodated. Though most of them want to do it at the vigil.
ReplyDeleteEspecially with Easter being late this year the weather was conducive to lighting the fire outside. People seem to like the candle lighting where everyone has a candle and passes the flame to their neighbor. Bottom line, there are a lot of things that are optional and under local or diocesan control, and that is where one needs to start if changes need to be made in things such as length of the service. Of course one has to follow the GIRM.
We used to do the whole megillah, bilingually, from lighting the candle behind the social center, readings at the center with music and dance, block-long procession to Baptism by immersion (outdoors) and into the dark church with the Paschal candle and tapers. If you were physically up for it, it was deeply moving. It ran up to four and a half hours, and those who stuck it out loved it.
ReplyDeleteOf course, some people brought their aged mother and said she couldn't take the strain and demanded to be let into church to wait for the Mass. We explained that the church would be dark for the next two and a half hours, and Mass would be half over before it got there. They still wanted in. We didn't let them. They went home angry. And tried it again the next year.
I blame it on lack of catechesis. Instead of catechesis, the pastor of the day compressed it. No procession. The fewest allowed readings. We are down to a little over two hours. It seems longer at two hours than it seemed at four, mainly because people don't expect to do anything, just sit and watch, like Sunday only longer.
So my answer to the question would be, it is an Easter liturgy if you are into Easter liturgies. It can't kill us to do it for people once a year. Besides, we have seven ordinary Masses, including one at dawn, for people who want to get in and out. Yes, the whole thing is too much for the elderly (even if the kids are trying to use their wheelchairs to get into church and skip the Liturgy of the Word). But we elderly can be accommodated at one of the other Masses. The Mass at dawn is usually the shortest of all and gets you to the eggs benedict before hunger pangs start to hurt.
The minimum required OT readings are three. But I agree with Tom that there are plenty of other options for those who find the vigil a bit much.
ReplyDeleteInteresting comments. We are down to the most stripped down vigil liturgy because of Father's poor health and the deacon's packed schedule (one deacon in his 70s doing two vigils and two masses on Easter Sunday to serve two priests in their 80s in two merged parishes). Plus the Church Ladies who do the readings want it short and start time as early as they can get permission from the bishop.
ReplyDeleteSo our aging parish pretty much dictates the way the vigil runs.
The vigil is also very poorly attended because of the length, so you have about 20 people to welcome the new converts.
I have suggested merging the vigil with our sister parish to save the strength of the deacon priest and RCIA leaders, but our parish is hanging onto the last vestiges of its independence as long as it can.
I think many parishes find these non liturgical considerations are shaping the vigil.
Potentially there are many options for the Lord's Day, feasts like Christmas, and Easter.
ReplyDeleteThe Lord's Day prototype observed in the Eastern Churches is Vespers on Saturday evening, Matins on Sunday Morning followed by Eucharist. (This is still observed by the Greek Orthodox). The Russians often combine Vespers and Matins on Saturday evening into one longer service, then Eucharist on Sunday morning.
On feast days the practice evolved in the East of doing Vespers on Saturday evening followed by Mass, then Matins on Sunday morning followed by another Mass. What happened in the East was the Vespers plus Mass on Easter Saturday evening got moved to Saturday morning (just as happened in the Roman Rite), and the Matins plus Mass on Easter morning got moved to MIDNIGHT. This is what my local Orthodox church does!. The rationale for the MIDNIGHT service is ancient, the idea that Christ will come again in the middle of the night!
So we have at least four possibilities; Vespers with Mass on Saturday evening; a Midnight Mass, a Matins Sunrise Mass; and a late morning Mass. I think we should use them all, that is what we do at Christmas.
I once attended the Easter Vigil at St. Meinrad's Abbey. They did it as a sunrise service. You got up around 5 am. The church was surrounded by bonfires. Extremely dramatic, goes back to the Germanic origins of the lighting of the new fire. By the time the liturgy ended, the sun was well up in the sky.
Of course having many long services taxes the capacity of choirs, especially since many of us choir members are aging and we are not adding many young people.
DeleteOne possibility for a year around RCIA would be to emphasize the Vigil nature of the Saturday evening Mass by having a candle lighting ceremony at the beginning, dismissal of Catechumens, etc. with occasional baptisms during none penitential seasons.
DeleteAll of the above!! In addition to the stamina of older people and the stamina of the clergy, there seems to me a generational lapse. I think this is so even on ordinary Sundays. The idea and sense that the liturgy is the work of the whole people, which I found to be one of the great developments of Vatican II, has gradually disappeared.
DeleteThe Vigil and even the ordinary Sunday Mass have become performances in which there is an audience (in the pews) and various performers (the presider(s), the choir, the ushers, etc.).
The passivity of the pew sitters is marked by their unwillingness or inability to respond to the words and ditto the music. Choirs can be great promoters of everyone singing or they can think they are the chorus at the Metropolitan Opera with James Levine directing!
Maybe the catechesis has to be: What is Liturgy and what are we doing here. Not just youngers, of course; everyone!
And then there is the bilingual challenge. I'll get to that later.
I am sensing a couple of different objections here. One way I do not think we should go is divorcing the new communicants from a parish-wide celebration of their entrance into the church. Ideally, the whole parish should be there. That is not possible, but it would be the ideal.
ReplyDeleteWe are a church, not anchorites. Combining baptized Catholics who are receiving their first Communion or Confirmation with the new candidates could be done away with. In fact, Confirmation at the Easter Vigil makes no sense for anybody anyway, but we don't seem close to agreement on what it is for.
But I don't think taking baptism out of the vigil is the way to go, especially not if it is to give the newly baptized individualized attention. Americans make too much of ourselves already. My local newspaper headlines, "President Trump adds to pomp of local Easter Services." I saw that and said, "Dear Lord, fire the idiot who wrote that headline." Our Presbyterian president chose to attend an Episcopalian church, as he does when he is at the winter White House, which seems to be most of the time. But the idea that he could add something to the Resurrection astonished me. Until I read one of the parishioners saying, "I think it does give special meaning to the service to have the president here." And it would add much to Amy's self esteem if we could all sing Sondheim's pericope, on her baptismal day: "Today is for Amy."
But it is and would be pretty cruddy theology, and angels would weep.
Paul to the Romans read during the vigil: "If we have died with Christ, we believe that we are also to live with him."
ReplyDeleteIn the midst of the liturgy transiting from one even to another, the thought loomed that indeed we would all die of lethargy in this liturgy but its capacities to resurrect us was virtually nil.
Doing Choir well; My own parish is one of the ten largest in the diocese with 5 Masses on Sunday; a parish about 20 miles away is a little over half our size, and has three Masses.
ReplyDeleteThey have 80 choir members, more than us. They have no choir Mass but divide equally among the Masses; we have a choir Mass with about 30 members and small groups of 5-10 for the other Masses.
Most of the time they sing hymns the people know; they sing 5 or 6 verses of the entrance and recessional. If you don't know the song you have a build in opportunity to learn it. They don't go into parts until they are sure the people have the melody. If they have a new or unfamiliar song they practice it before Mass. The choir has its practice in the church before Mass which many of the people come early to hear.
Their choir has two levels; the first for church singing you don't have to read music or take a voice test. The second is for the concert choir which does most of its performance for concerts not for liturgy. The parish has several concerts a year by the choir plus hosts a variety of paid and free will offering concerts. In other words it does not confuse supporting worship with supporting culture; it does both well.
One of the reasons that our choir has difficulty recruiting people is that it is oriented to the SATB folks. When we accompany the people we do it SATB. We only sing 2 verses at the entrance and recessional. We don't practice in church before Mass, and rarely practice a new hymn with the people. Our music keeps the people with music skills happy. I have a beautiful loud voice. I love hearing it in a resonate church. But I don't read music well, I learn by ear which means I have to wait to the other tenors learn it. Sometimes I just go sit with the people and enjoy singing.
I don't know what SATB is.
DeleteSATB- soprano, alto, tenor, bass; four-part harmony.
DeleteHahaha! Now it is clear to all why I am not in a choir.
DeleteJR: What! SATB? You are N (none of these). Do you have a unique vocal range.
Delete"The idea and sense that the liturgy is the work of the whole people, which I found to be one of the great developments of Vatican II, has gradually disappeared." I think you are right, Margaret. It seems we've gotten into a consumer mentality about liturgy, that it's a product produced for our benefit, rather than something we all do. Which is unfortunate. I think this is also part of the reason we have so many "nones", people so disengaged that they don't even show up. I don't know what the solution is.
ReplyDeleteAlso touching on this issue; I cringe when I hear people speak disparagingly of Christmas and Easter Catholics. We don't want to discourage even that minimal amount of engagement; if it's there, it's something that can be built on.
Tom, I agree with you that, "One way I do not think we should go is divorcing the new communicants from a parish-wide celebration of their entrance into the church." I think most adult catechumens want to take part in this celebration. Babies and little kids being baptized are another story, Easter Vigil is after their bedtime and they will get cranky. A regular Sunday morning is better for them.
ReplyDeleteAbout Confirmation being included in the vigil, I believe the thought is that it is one of the sacraments of initiation and deserves to be "grouped" with Baptism and Eucharist. Prior to Vatican II Confirmation was reserved to the bishop in ordinary circumstances. And the bishop didn't get to some rural communities but once every several years. My mother was a convert, and she was confirmed at the same time I was (when I was 9 yrs. old). She had actually joined the Church 3 years earlier, and it would have been nice if she didn't have to wait for Confirmation that long.
I didn't grow up with the liturgy, but as a convert I found it too complex, ritualized, distancing. It all seemed like a lead-up to one necessary thing - obtaining the eucharist. If this Sunday visit to church is the only spiritual practice for some people, it seems deficient.
ReplyDeleteKatherine, Oh, yeah. I was only talking about RCIA adults at Vigil Baptisms.
ReplyDeleteWe used to baptize babies at the Mass of the parents' choice. While we still had the outdoor font with steps for immersion, we videoed it into the congregation. But the font sprung a $30,000 leak, the pastor got rid of it instead of fixing it, and we are back to baptizing children into their families -- instead of into the church -- on Saturday afternoons. Well, we never saw most of those parents again until it was time for the kid to be confirmed. It was depressing when we had a baptism during Mass and no one -- not the parents, not the godparents, not even the grandparents -- went to Communion or knew what to do when we passed the basket. One wonders what our leaders think about.
Our parish requires that RCIA candidates and catechumens and their children of all ages be brought into the church at the same time at the Easter Vigil. It was explained to me that you can't have your child baptized until you yourself are a Catholic and can promise to raise him/her in the faith, but your child should be baptised at the earliest possible moment after you are. So we parents were processed, and then the kids.
ReplyDeleteGodparents are another thing that were a problem for us. We were told that The Boy's godparents had to be a married couple. Our choice, a long-time single female friend who is a very faithful Catholic, was excluded. We had to settle for a couple we did not know all that well, and we lost touch with them before The Boy received his first communion.
Generally, I don't think most cradle Catholics really appreciate the effort it takes for converts to get through RCIA; our parish is full of people in their 70s and 80s. Their backs hurt and they don't see very well. Having a lot of converts just drags things out for them.
Jean, the married couple thing must be a rule of your parish or diocese. The only rule here is that one of the godparents has to be a Catholic who has been confirmed, over the age of 18. The other one can be a "Christian witness". My granddaughters' godparents are their single aunts and uncles (single at the time, that is.) I was my youngest sister's godmother when I was 18.
DeleteI hate it when the powers that be make things a lot worse and more complicated than they have to be. And then wonder why we have trouble keeping members.
My gripes and grouses above are not the reason I lapsed, though it is a reason that I do not participate more in the life of the local parish; it is full of fuss budgets and pearl clutchers. These rules are merely annoying and sometimes maddening examples of leaders who have some kind of hobby horse and just enough power to make everybody else ride it. This is certainly not unique to Catholics. When I was confirmed as an Episcopalian, there was some scandal because I didn't have a corsage.
DeleteThe variety in practices detailed above is fascinating--showing that the Catholic Church is not the Marine Corps. Does the variation arise from the pastor's decisions, diocesan rules, or careful discussion by the Parish Pastoral Council, or liturgy committee, or.....?
ReplyDeleteI would like us to discuss bilingual liturgies, their virtues and otherwise. Should I start another post?
Start a new post on bilingual liturgies. If we have enough experience here about that, we will likely find it as complex as RCIA practices.
ReplyDeleteWe have many, many self appointed experts on the liturgy far beyond bishops and priests. When VOTF in Cleveland was planning a Mass for victims of sexual abuse about a half a dozen lay experts stepped forward. I outranked everybody in the number of graduate level liturgy courses, but I didn't want to get into endless arguments. One of the experts was a woman who had a parish choir that was willing to help. I said let her and the choir plan the whole event. Everybody agreed.
Assuming we were in charge of this (which we're not, so it's academic), how would we uncouple RCIA from the Easter Vigil, which elongates the already longest liturgy of the church year? The current RCIA set-up seems pretty inextricably interwoven with the Vigil?
ReplyDeleteSimply baptize or admit to full communion the RCIA people one per Sunday beginning the Sundays after Easter. The rite would be similar to that of children. The person processes in during the entrance procession; they state their desire for baptism, the sponsors state their support. The baptism is administered after the homily, and there is a concluding rite at the end of Mass, probably would add and extra 10-15 minutes to the Mass.
DeleteThis would also allow us to exempt some people from some of the RCIA preliminaries, e.g. spouses who have attended Mass for the last 20 years, except that haven't been receiving communion.
For awhile one of our parishes was administering confirmation to children at the same time as First Eucharist. The pastor did the confirming. The children were spread over three masses; it made the Masses about 90 minutes long but was a very beautiful liturgy. It was done during the paschal season. No one now (I hope) thinks we should be confirming and admitting to Eucharist all the children during the Easter Vigil
DeleteWe do celebrate Easter for 50 days!
We have the custom here of having First Communions (of children) on Laetare Sunday, so that they will be able to receive on Easter. I remember that my First Communion was on Laetare Sunday.
DeleteKatherine, I think a lot of parents are going to be pretty cheesed about sharing First Communion Sunday (aka Photo Op Sunday) with new adult converts.
DeleteJack, one candidate/catechumen at a time after Easter? My Lord! That would take weeks at a big parish, well through Pentecost.
Converts make their first confession on Holy Saturday. I could see catechumens baptized at an afternoon service immediately after (I think candidate confirmation should take place after Mystagogia). First Communion and a short presentation of catechumens and candidates could take place during the vigil.
I would like parishes to see the differences between catechumens and candidates, but many parishes lump everyone together.