Easter Vigil - when did you start and finish?

[alan29]

Our priest started the Exultet too low so that he couldn't get down to the low bit. Started the next section too high and glissando-ed somewhat inelegantly to a more sensible pitch. This year I photocopied the sung dialogue and spread the copies among the members of the congregation who sing ..... so it went better than usual.
We have several excellent choral society/am dram singers who would sing the Exultet really well, but nobody has the heart to raise the subject with our lovely and much-loved PP. The curate who will presumably get it by buggins' turn next year is an even less secure singer.

[Southern Comfort]

Started at 8pm, people were walking out at the end by 9:15pm. <snip>

As you can see, they keep things moving along here in Ireland Even so I suspect the PP, who delegated the planning to the curate, believes 1.25 hours was too long.

This is precisely the kind of pastor who provoked the publication of the instruction on the celebration of Easter, Paschale Solemnitatis (Jan 1988). It was aimed, we are told, at Italian priests who were prone to getting through the entire Vigil in 45 minutes flat.

A complete lack of understanding of the role of symbol in liturgy, for a start.

[alan29]

Started at 8pm, people were walking out at the end by 9:15pm. At the start it was fully light, by the end it was fully dark. Start time chosen to by the same as the other evening events (Holy Thursday and stations on Friday night - we learned the hard way that having different start times on different evenings is A Big Mistake.

Had a fire outside and procession in, the Exsultet was chnated in full, 3 OT readings before the (Genesis, Exodus and Isaiah) psalm responses on were sung (not the verses), Gloria was sung, Litnay was sung and there were three adults baptims and confirmations.

As you can see, they keep things moving along here in Ireland Even so I suspect the PP, who delegated the planning to the curate, believes 1.25 hours was too long.

How on earth can that be done in an hour and a quarter?

[keitha]

How indeed? We started at 8pm outside with a large fire and the sound of a fairground on the common over the road (we checked and sunset was at 7.39). It wasn't really dark enough outside, but when we got into church it was completely dark. We had 3 OT readings, full sung Exsultet, all psalms and acclamations sung, sung litany and prayers, and 5 baptisms and 4 confirmations with Communion under both kinds, and finished at 11.50pm. We could have saved about 10 minutes if we had marshalled our entrance procession and candle lighting rather better (we had rather more people than expected), but, frankly, anything else would have been an unseemly rush. Next year we will have a bit of a party for everyone afterwards. This is becoming a bit of a trend locally - a neighbouring parish even finished with fireworks!

[Hare]

21.00 start, 23.15 finish. Odd numbered readings and sung psalms, deacon sang Exsultet.

One year (1998) we started and finished in broad daylight - at request of then PP who was only with us for a year. Said Exsultet, fire INDOORS!!!!!! AFTER the Readings!! Hymns in place of set psalms....Alleluia SPOKEN!!!! Total travesty.

[quaeritor]

Very similar to Keitha - 8.00 start - rather too daylight outside for the start, but dark by the time we processed in with candles and got to the Exsultet (sung by the Deacon - used to be my party piece before we had a Deacon - serves me right for enjoying it too much!) We had a pre-lit fire - a triumph of pragmatism over ritual which I'd like to try to reverse. What are the "rules" for lighting the fire, and how do you ensure success? (we had a number of failures many years ago, hence the pre-lit option.) Four readings with relevant psalms sung (rubric: "No 3 and the ones we didn't do last year") No Baptisms, but one reception, and all through by about 10.15. No feeling of rush though.

I do like the idea of a party to end with - must try to float that idea next year!

Alleluia SPOKEN!!!! Total travesty.

Do you mean the celbrant said "Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia", then the Congregation said "Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia", then the celebrant again, etc through three iterations? A travesty indeed - did he use a higher voice each time?

Q

[Hare]

Alleluia SPOKEN!!!! Total travesty.

Do you mean the celbrant said "Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia", then the Congregation said "Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia", then the celebrant again, etc through three iterations? A travesty indeed - did he use a higher voice each time?

Q

I think the reader said "Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia" before and between the verses of the psalm. It was a long time ago, but from memory, after the Genesis reading he chose "How great thou art" to replace the psalm, then we had the Exodus reading followed by SAID canticle. Offertory hymn was "Alleluia, alleluia, give thanks..." Communion "The Old Rugged Cross" and finished with "Alleluia sing to Jesus" Gloria, Sanctus etc all SAID!

[High Peak]

A mixed bag and, frankly, some real liturgical horror stories amongst them. Why do so many parishes habitually break the rules? Thus robbing everyone so much of the drama and theatre of the Vigil! Why do so many settle for what is so prosaic!

Rant! Rant! Rant! Rant!

Ros Wood: With whom was the "compromise" made - PP or other parishioners?
VML: Is episcopal permission required to start the Vigil before it's dark? (That would be a weapon in my armoury! )

[VML]

I think the point is that it is pretty well understood - in theory- that Easter begins after sundown, and preferably when properly dark.
I think the permission was mentioned because of this, but it was 1987, and the first time we had had a sung Exsultet in my time in the parish. I had begged a copy from a neighbouring parish priest, asked him if it was appropriate for it to be sung by a woman, and then, as it was simpler and we knew Dom Gregory Murray, I did, on that occasion only, sing his simple setting. Since then we have always used the full chant.
The few times I went to the Vigil in the 70s and early 80s while our children were small there was no music, and it was got through as quickly as possible.

[Ros Wood]

Compromise was with the more "pastoral" members of the Liturgy Committee. PP and MC both wanted to make sure it was after dark (although being next to a roundabout on the N Circular we don't really know what dark means).

[Ephrem Feeley]

Our Vigil started at 9pm and finished close to 11pm. Three OT readings with their psalms; everything sung, including the preface, institution narrative and mass parts; three adult baptisms. There was a very good crowd there - numbers have been growing at our Easter Vigil recently (there seemed to have been less on Good Friday which traditionally was really well-attended), and many returned the following morning too. The 11am Mass on Easter Sunday morning was jam packed, rather like a Christmas Day.

While we're swapping stories, one of my childhood memories of the Easter Vigil in my home parish was when the paschal fire was lit in a bucket inside the church. The bucket was painted, to give it less of a bucket-like appearance, but flammable paint and Paschal fires don't really mix... Priest, with vestments flying dangerously close to the flames, along with two others, carted the blaze outside. An Easter to remember.

[Southern Comfort]

We had a pre-lit fire - a triumph of pragmatism over ritual which I'd like to try to reverse. What are the "rules" for lighting the fire, and how do you ensure success? (we had a number of failures many years ago, hence the pre-lit option.)

The two "triumphs" for MCs at the Easter Vigil are (a) providing a candle whose flame will not blow out in the wind. These days, this normally means a cellophane sleeve at the top of the candle; (b) providing a fire which is already going strong when people emerge from the church to gather round it and which does not go out before the people have departed to go back inside.

I've never seen a fire that was not pre-lit. (And yes, there are lots of stories about Easter Vigil fires which can only be told in the Summer School bar after a few drinks.)

[JW]

It's worth bearing in mind the significant effect of location on the time of sunset. For example, on 4 April, the sun set in Cork at 20.12, so it was broad daylight at 8pm. In Medway the sun set 37 minutes earlier at 19.35 and it was getting quite dark by 8pm.

[John Ainslie]

Alleluia SPOKEN!!!! Total travesty.

Do you mean the celbrant said "Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia", then the Congregation said "Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia", then the celebrant again, etc through three iterations? A travesty indeed - did he use a higher voice each time?

Q

As a matter of interest, how do you, dear reader, cope with this Easter Alleluia? Does the priest sing the full, ancient chant three times in ascending pitches - and, if so, do all the people faithfully repeat it? And then what? Do they repeat the full thing after each of the three verses of the psalm, as the Missal rubric seems to require? Special Easter eggs for all who do. (The Missal says "then the psalmist or cantor proclaims Psalm 117 with the people responding Alleluia", but it doesn't prescribe the same Alleluia as previously, to be pedantic...)

In my local parish we do things a little more simply. The priest enjoys doing his bit - and does it well - and the choir are up to repeating it each time accurately enough, but few of the congregation do. Then the cantor or choir sings the simple chant triple alleluia, which the people repeat readily enough (and with a sense of relief!), as they do after each verse of the psalm. Works well.

[alan29]

We sing the Walker et al "Celtic" alleluia.
On the debit (or credit) side it deprives the priest of a chance to solo.
On the credit side, it contains 4 alleluias, rather than the missal's 3, so is even more Paschal - especially as the roof is raised by one and all.
Plus a couple of verses.