The Great Vigil of Easter

Pope Benedict prays inside the

Holy Sepulcher in Jerusalem

On Holy Saturday, according to Aegeria, the normal morning and midday prayers are held, but not Vespers as it seems that Vespers has been assumed into the Vigils.  Aegeria does not tell us much about the Vigil services, simply saying that it is done in Jerusalem as it is “done among us,” wherever it is that her home Church is.  We know from other sources that the Jerusalem Church did not have the custom of the paschal candle as was done in Rome, Gaul, and North Africa. Rather the bishop entered the tomb and emerged with three lit candles. This would develop into the ritual of the “miraculous fire” as practiced even today by the Greek Orthodox Patriarch of Jerusalem.  The vigils would consist of twelve lessons each set off with a psalm.  Aegeria does mention that the newly baptized, after their baptism and chrismation in the baptistery, are brought to the Tomb first where the bishop says a prayer over them and only then are they led into the Basilica for the Eucharistic celebration. At the conclusion of the Liturgy the Bishop and faithful go to the Tomb where the bishop offers a second Eucharist.  The baptistery of the Constantinian basilica was—as were all baptisteries in the early Church—a separate building to the main basilica and so the faithful, gathered in the basilica, would not see the baptisms though they would be aware they were going on and would be praying for those being baptized.  Similarly in this particular church of the Holy Sepulcher, there was not only the separate baptistery but the Sepulcher itself stood in a separate shrine area, called the martyrium, behind the apse of the basilica and separated from it by an open courtyard.  Thus the faithful were gathered in the basilica; the bishop and catechumens were in the baptistery until after their baptism and anointing where they went first to the tomb and then to the main church for the Eucharist. 
In today’s rituals, we gather in the one building as the baptistery is in most places part of the church itself.  We have the new fire and the paschal candle—a Roman custom that differed from the Jerusalem Rite.  Then we have the vigil of readings followed by the baptism and confirmation of the catechumens as they did in Jerusalem.  The rites conclude with the Eucharist as it did at Jerusalem.  We can see the roots of the modern ceremony in the fifth century rituals described by Aegeria.       

Holy Week V

And where would be more perfect to spend Holy Week than in Jerusalem?  Well actually, probably just about anywhere.  The shoving and pushing of tens of thousands of pilgrims in the backstreets and narrow alleys of the old city; the hawking of wares and souvenirs, by Arab merchants, the contemptuous glances and spitting of the ultra-orthodox, the omnipresent soldiers with their UZIs cocked and ready, the mutual hostility of Greek monks and the Franciscan friars—you really don’t want to spend Holy Week in Jerusalem.  But come to the Holy City some other, less frenetic week.  Every week is Holy Week in Jerusalem; every day Good Friday.  And a visit to the Holy City really is—while not what you might expect—a truly holy  time.

      Aethteria was a nun from what is today Spain or perhaps France who in the first half of the 380’s made a pilgrimage to Jerusalem, and in a letter to her fellow nuns back home recorded the events and ceremonies of Holy Week as it was celebrated there.  It is amazing how the Palm Sunday and Good Friday services in particular are still very much what we celebrate today, though considerably longer due to the size of the crowds Aetheria encountered and the desire to make maximum use of the whole sacred space covered by Christ in the city of his passion and death.  The procession of palms, for example, began on the Mount of Olives, crossed the Kidron Valley, and entered the Holy City proceeding to the martyrium, the shrine built over Calvary.  Through the night of Holy Thursday the faithful proceeded carrying torches from the Garden of Gethsemane to the city along the path which Christ’s captors would have taken him to the house of the High Priest.  It was a dramatic experience to be sure to walk what was believed to be the very same ancient paths as Christ had trod his last night.  And yet the liturgies were dramatic in their simplicity—being mostly the reading of the prophets, the singing of the passion according to Saint John, and the prayers.  The liturgies of lent, and in particular of Holy Week, very much reflect the more spartan and plain worship of the early Church.  And that is something many miss today in their attempts to “restore” the liturgy we knew before the Council.  Until the Council of Trent the genius of the Roman Liturgy had always been its utter starkness.  That starkness today is best preserved in the monastic liturgies, especially those of the Cistercian (Trappist) abbeys.  And while Krakow is my favorite place to spend Holy Week, Seville the most fascinating, and Jerusalem, without a doubt the most astonishing—for a truly holy week, go to Spencer or Gethsemane or  Wrentham or Snowmass and pray with nuns or monks.