To our total shock, after Mass, the priest asked if we would like to see the severed head of John the Baptist we had stumbled into the Basilica of San Silvestro. Our plans for the day becoming somehow waylaid, we ended up attending a vigil Mass at a random nearby church. It’s not quite art but a relic! Several years ago, my family was in Rome for Easter. Make a double batch of rice and make fried rice the next day! You can even steam iceberg lettuce in the microwave by rinsing it off, covering it on a plate with a damp paper towel, and microwaving for about 2:30. A really simple, tasty meal is a fried egg with soy sauce over rice with a side of oyster sauce steamed lettuce.
I love to do easy Asian-inspired cooking. (I’m biased it’s a family tradition.) But you probably shouldn’t use the day to take a break from trying to pray more or have more patience. I think it’s fine to take a break and eat chocolate chip pancakes on Sundays. It depends on whether I’m giving something up or trying to do something additional. And if you aren’t, then wait for one more night through the darkness until the light comes on Sunday morning. If you, too, are attending a vigil tonight, happy Easter. For us, Jesus is risen the rest of the world just doesn’t know it yet. Maybe this is how the apostles felt when they first learned about the resurrection, before they shared the good news with anybody else. Eating chocolate or dessert for the first time in 40 days-knowing that everybody else has to wait for tomorrow-feels a bit like a secret. When light finally sweeps over the nave partway through the readings, it’s like the world being born new.Īfter Mass ends, it’s usually a small group of us, standing around the refreshments, waking up from the trance that three hours of Mass can instill. We want Easter to come early, and we are the first to celebrate it. At the vigil, we are all chasers of the light. Sitting in the darkened church lit only by candlelight, the sense of expectant waiting is palpable. Lighting first the Easter fire and then everybody’s individual candle, passing the flame to each other wick-to-wick up and down the pews, there’s a strong sense of community. But because the crowd is usually small, it feels intimate. They are a large part of why the service takes so long and why the vigil isn’t for everybody. The extensive readings can be daunting for some, and understandably so. But it can be a meaningful part of Easter-and not just a time to dye eggs or make tomorrow’s dessert. Holy Saturday can feel like the sleepless night-before-Christmas of the Triduum. When we are between the two is when we most need direction, like a road map to Easter. To experience the resurrection, we need to understand the path that led to the cross. To know where we are going, we need to know where we came from.
The readings are a crash course in Catholicism, a summary of salvation history from Genesis to the resurrection. But it was also because the vigil is, in some ways, an extended story-telling session, a drawing nearer around the campfire to hear our own history. I have always been susceptible to “smells and bells” pageantry, and that was certainly part of my attraction to the liturgy. The first year my family attended the vigil, I was unenthused-a three-hour Mass?-but I found myself settling in soon enough. And that’s not to mention Holy Saturday’s best-kept secret: the Easter Vigil Mass, where these readings are proclaimed. With seven readings from the Old Testament, an epistle and the Gospel, it’s a veritable smorgasbord of spirituality.
If you look a little closer, Holy Saturday actually has something of an embarrassment of riches. But Saturday can be a meaningful and important part of Easter-and not just a time to dye eggs or make tomorrow’s dessert. It is kind of the sleepless night-before-Christmas of the Triduum. Sandwiched between the solemnity of Good Friday and the joy of Easter, Saturday can seem to have no particular draw of its own. It can be easy to think of Holy Saturday as a kind of nothing day. God then separated the light from the darkness” (Gn 1:3-4). ‘Let there be light,’ and there was light.
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