Easter Sunday morning Masses

[High Peak]

For those of you that do the Easter Vigil "properly" - ie not starting until at least one hour after sunset - do you still have a full complement of Easter Sunday morning Masses? Or do you cut the number down (logically, omitting the earliest Sunday morning Mass) following the late finish the previous night?

Christmas this (liturgical) year was on a Sunday and we cut the number of (Sunday) Masses on Christmas morning, but we are not doing the same for Easter, despite the fact that we won't finish until 11pm+ - which I find illogical.

One thing I like about my many Easters at Ampleforth is that the Easter Vigil Mass (which typically starts at 10pm and finishes between 1 & 1.30am) always finishes with Lauds - thus allowing the monks a bit of a lie-in after what was, for them, a very late night.

[IncenseTom]

We normally just have a 6:30pm Vigil Mass and an 11am Mass on a Sunday.

For Easter our Vigil is at 8pm and we are having TWO Sunday Masses - 9:30am and 11am. For some reason we have loads of people come on Easter Sunday.

[VML]

For some reason we have loads of people come on Easter Sunday.

We have the Vigil at 8.00. My husband is fed up with me commenting on how light it is already...
Easter Sunday is always packed. There is no music at 8.30, so just 10.30 to do. Sharing music with alt leader, so no organ on Sunday...
But there will be a very upbeat American song after Communion: 'For the Cross,' by Brian and Jenn Johnson, for which there is no sheet music, and no practice.... Leader will lead....

[alan29]

We have the normal quota, but with the Saturday 6.00pm moved to 8.00pm for tge Easter Vigil. Then two on Sunday, the normal 9.00 quiet Mass and the usual family mass at 11.00 with cream eggs for the kids. Will be packed.

[organist]

The real point here is Why don't people come to the Vigil? It is part of the Triduum and should be the highpoint of the whole year. Some say it is too long. Sadly people's attention spans are now so short. Another point worth making is that the people can follow the liturgy in the Mass books and if something goes wrong everybody spots it! So preparation is needed. You do need an MC for a liturgy like the Vigil.

[High Peak]

I wonder to what extend the Vigil is "sold" as the highpoint of the whole year - to what extent we "big-it-up". I don't think that it is too controversial to state that we don't have the most theologically or liturgically literate laity, and they need help to get a sense of and understanding of its significance. Personally, I simply don't see this happening.

Then it falls to us to take the sheer drama and theatre of the liturgy and do something that does it justice. This is partly why I was so insistent that our Vigil started no earlier than 9pm - when it was almost totally dark. Then I bought a fire pit that was large enough to accommodate a fire so that the flames actually did dispel the darkness of the night - anyone who has been camping knows how captivating such a fire can be. This helped create a very powerful atmosphere that was maintained as we entered the totally darkened church. We sang everything we could, we took everything at a "dignified" pace (there is a terrible tendency here to rush from one thing to the next) and we didn't finish the final verse of Thine be the glory until well after 11pm - an absolute marathon for our parish!

And yet, a common refrain was that it didn't feel like 2+ hours!

Sell it. Explain it. Execute it.

[PhloridaPhil]

Our Vigil started at 8.30pm and finished at 11.40pm with 25 people received. Then one of the deacons approached me to ask me to play for a wedding . This was immediatey after the Vigil, the bride being one of those received!

I was back at 5.30am for the 6am 'Sunrise ' Mass and the usual Sunday sequence of 7.30, 9.30, 11am and 12.45 and 7pm Masses.
Parishioners brought me food and gratitude during the morning to keep me going! Cantors supported each Mass and some keen memebers of the choir returned for the 11am but we didn't sing anything that was not congregational.

At the end of the Masses I played some Clerambault but after the 12.45 I was so keen to get the people out of church I played Langlais' Incantation pour un jour saint'. At the end of the final Mass I played Handel's Halellujah and invited the congregation to join in. It was so successful and joyous that I must do that again.

Happy Easter, everyone!

[JW]

Played Handel's Hallelujah at the end of the Vigil. It may well become a tradition. People were joining in spontaneously and there was a round of applause at the end!

[VML]

We will have our shortest ever Vigil this year, and still at 8.00. And sunset is 7.44....
New PP will sing short form Exsultet, with responses, 'This is the night of joy... etc.' It will be good to have the priest singing it, after 30 years of cantors.
(Does anywhere have a female voice for the Exsultet? )
And readings will be five, and there are no receptions or baptisms.

[High Peak]

Despite the great success of last year's Triduum liturgies and - so far as I can tell - the universal appreciation of them, our PP has decided to revert to a pre-darkness start time for the Vigil.
So, once again proving that it is easier to negotiate with a terrorist than a liturgist, I'm off on retreat for the Triduum this year. Such a shame.

[Peter]

Don't you mean, HP, that it's easier to negotiate with a terrorist than with a PP? He doesn't sound like much of a liturgist to me!

Our Vigil is also at 8, which seems to have become the norm, but given the long-range weather forecast it could be wet, so we may have the fire indoors anyway. Still, it's better than one time I remember, in a parish that served a number of Mass centres in outlying villages, where one of those had a Vigil starting at 6.30, outside and still in full daylight! It seemed really odd.

[JW]

The Easter Triduum and Vigil is the source and summit of our weekly liturgy for every parish family. As a parish family, we may not always agree with things that happen but I try to make sure that I'm there and contributing. I suspect part of Catholicism's problem in England is that people don't identify as a community and everything we can do to bring this about is helpful. My relationship with God is important but so is my relationship with the Parish Family: I must love God and equally love my neighbour. Lack of proper dialogue is also a huge problem in the English church and an organisation called ACTA was set up 5 years ago to try and address this.

VML, a few years ago our deacon was in hospital and the PP asked me to sing the Exsultet. I suggested that we use one of our female cantors, who were better singers, but the PP said no. Perhaps when a female deacon sings it at St Peter's, more equality may follow in our parishes. I suspect that priests some parishes might simply read it if there is no male singer...

[Southern Comfort]

Church near me is starting its Easter Vigil Mass (sic) at 7:00pm. Even if the clocks hadn't gone forward a week before, that would still be in daylight. Sunset is 7:35, so I guess he is thinking that it will be dark by the time they finish.

[JW]

Many parish's vigils are attended mainly by the elderly who don't want to be out late. I suspect that is one reason why they tend to start their Easter celebrations early.

I remember when the Vigil started about 10 or 10.30 and the actual Mass didn't start till midnight. Our PP used to send everyone out for a cigarette break at 11.45. You have to admit it's strange celebrating Easter before Easter Day, but if we do that, let's not get overly hung up about vigils that start an hour before they're supposed to where there are pastoral considerations.

[High Peak]

Paschale Solemnitatis is very clear about this. There is no "pastoral provision":

‘The entire celebration of the Easter Vigil takes place at night. It should not begin before nightfall; it should end before daybreak on Sunday’. This rule is to be taken according to its strictest sense. Reprehensible are those abuses and practices that have crept into many places in violation of this ruling….”
(Paschale Solemnitatis 78)

For those for whom it is considered too late for reasons of age or frailty then there is the Easter Sunday morning Mass. There is nothing wrong with this.

In my experience, those who complain about the Easter Vigil being held in darkness are the ones who complain that we no longer have Christmas midnight Mass. Or they will attend parish social events that go on to very late into the evening.