Easter Vigil before dark?

[chessnerd321]

My pastor has a knack for starting it when we can do the Easter fire lighting in twilight and then it’s dark to process in. That seems pretty darn ideal to me.

 

[chessnerd321]

That’s no fun. I’m sorry for your loss.

Seems more like holy weak than holy week.

 

[Hoosier-Daddy]

In the four diocese I’ve lived in I’ve always gone to the Easter vigil. Not once has it started in complete darkness. It ends in complete darkness though. Last night was 830. Sunset was 835. Full dark was much later. We ended at 1130. We attend the cathedral parish and the bishop is the celebrant.

 

[Hoosier-Daddy]

Many may not he Catholic at all. The catechumens and candidates have many non catholic family members supporting them. I dont mind if they leave early.

 

[7_Sorrows]

I don’t think they realized it is a different Mass
than the Sunday Easter Mass.
By the 3rd or 4th reading, people were beginning to leave.

 

[LisaB]

Ours starts at 10 pm and is usually done at 1 am, though last night we went till 1:15. Every single word of the readings and prayers is chanted in Latin, and the church (and our missals) are illuminated by the candles in our hands for the first two hours. It is glorious.

 

[PeterT]

In an effort to make the Easter Vigil more family-friendly this year, our pastor decided to start the Easter Vigil at 7:45, but where I live, sundown wasn’t until after 8, (we finally reached near full dark around the Gloria), is this liturgical abuse, or else some severe problem? I understand that it is not supposed to start until after dark and be completed entirely during the night, ending before sunrise.

Yes, its supposed to start when it’s dark.

In my diocese — to prevent liturgical abuse by pastors of parishes who would want to start the Easter Vigil before it’s fully dark — each year our local bishop always sets the earliest time that Vigil can start.

This year it was at 8:30 PM. No church in our diocese was permitted to have their Easter Vigil start earlier. Our bishop also enforces that each church in his diocese can celebrate only ONE Easter Vigil Mass and not one for each language community (one in English, another one is Spanish). So in my parish, the Easter Vigil Mass is always bilingual.

 

[PeterT]

Our Easter Vigil began around 8:30 and ended
about 11:45. Many people left before we had even finished the readings. We had 7 readings.
By the time we reached the baptisms and confirmations, half the people had left. By the
time we reached the Liturgy of the Eucharist,
a third of the church was remaining.
Are these Easter and Christmas only Catholics that don’t know what the Easter Vigil is? It was really sad to see people just get up and leave like it was a movie they didn’t like.

That’s sad to hear.

Our church’s Easter Vigil started at 8:30 PM and was completed at around 11:15 PM and more people were in the church at the end (for Holy Communion) than at the beginning (for the Service of Light) because a number of people tend to drift in late, but by the 2nd Reading it was a standing-room only full house and as far as I could tell most stayed until the the very end.

And of course there’s almost always some children (8 to 12 year olds) attending the Easter Vigil because they’re being baptized into the Church.

At our church, Easter Vigil is usually attended by the families and friends of those being baptized, received, confirmed and receiving first communion and regular parishioners who attend Mass every week.

Those who only attend Easter and Christmas Masses seem to attend Mass at our church on Easter Sunday. (I’m not sure many of those who attend only at Christmas and Easter would be even aware that there’s a special Easter Vigil Mass the night before.)

 

[7_Sorrows]

My previous priest called the Christmas and
Easter only attendees - CEO’s!

 

[Elf01]

WE only had three readings from the old testament three psalms the epistle and the Gospel.

How long did yours last?

We had 4 and it did not last much (if any) longer than an hour and a half. We didn’t have anybody received into the Church either so both may have contributed to how short it was compared to the times here.

 

[phil19034]

So in my parish, the Easter Vigil Mass is always bilingual.

My mom is from Puerto Rico (born and raised) so I feel free to say this: I hate the bi-lingual vernacular masses.

While I’m ok with rotating the readings in both Spanish & English if the attendance is truely split, I’m not a fan of mixing the hymns and responses with multiple vernacular languages.

To me, that is the perfect time to use Latin hymns and Latin responses.

I think it is far easier to teach English speaking Catholics (and Spanish speakers) to chant the Lamb of God in Latin and sing some traditional (and famous) Latin Hymn than to have the English speakers attempt to pray the Lamb of God in Spanish and/or sing in Spanish.

God Bless

 

[Phemie]

thequeen:

WE only had three readings from the old testament three psalms the epistle and the Gospel.

How long did yours last?

We had 4 and it did not last much (if any) longer than an hour and a half. We didn’t have anybody received into the Church either so both may have contributed to how short it was compared to the times here.

We had 5 readings (1st, 3rd, 5th, 7th, and Epistle) and nobody baptized or received into full communion. Actually, that’s pretty standard for us, we’ve only had one Baptism at the Vigil in the 22 years I’ve been here and one year we had two boys confirmed. Receiving someone into full communion is usually done at a regular Mass and only 3 people that I can remember have been been received since I’ve been here.

Our Vigil started at 9 p.m. and I was back in the car at 10:45. Communion was short since, out of a parish with 1500+ members, we only had about 35 people in attendance. Most of the choir didn’t bother to show up, there were only 4 present.

 

[phil19034]

Actually, that’s pretty standard for us, we’ve only had one Baptism at the Vigil in the 22 years I’ve been here and one year we had two boys confirmed. Receiving someone into full communion is usually done at a regular Mass and only 3 people that I can remember have been been received since I’ve been here.

Very sad to hear this.

 

[Phemie]

Phemie:

Actually, that’s pretty standard for us, we’ve only had one Baptism at the Vigil in the 22 years I’ve been here and one year we had two boys confirmed. Receiving someone into full communion is usually done at a regular Mass and only 3 people that I can remember have been been received since I’ve been here.

Very sad to hear this.

It is sad. But nothing is being done to change it.

In fact, not much is being done to stem the exodus from the pews that we’ve seen over the last 15 years or so. If it weren’t for the 70+ members and the Filipinos who’ve immigrated in the last 7 years or so the church would be almost empty.

 

[twf]

Yeah our cathedral is very multi-cultural, but for the Easter Vigil the Gloria, Sanctus and Agnus Dei were in Latin.

 

[Weserthy]

Father Z did a post about the earliest time that the Easter Vigil can begin here:

ASK FATHER: How early can the Easter Vigil begin? | Fr. Z's Blog

wdtprs.com

Some quotes from the rubrics:

The whole celebration of the Paschal Vigil ought to be completed at night , both so that it does not begin before the beginning of night , and that it finishes before dawn of Sunday.

And a quote from the CDW concerning this rule:

1. This rule is to be taken according to its strictest sense . Reprehensible are those abuses and practices which have crept in many places in violation of this ruling, whereby the Easter Vigil is celebrated at the time of day that it is customary to celebrate anticipated Masses.

Starting the Easter Vigil mass before true darkness is an abuse. The reasons for starting earlier provided by the pastors for some posters in this thread (more family friendly, trying to get more people to attend, etc.) are poor excuses for violating this rule.

 

[Vico]

In an effort to make the Easter Vigil more family-friendly this year, our pastor decided to start the Easter Vigil at 7:45, but where I live, sundown wasn’t until after 8, (we finally reached near full dark around the Gloria), is this liturgical abuse, or else some severe problem? I understand that it is not supposed to start until after dark and be completed entirely during the night, ending before sunrise.

Nightfall corresponds to evening nautical twilight per Diocese of San Jose.

Why is darkness so important for the Easter Vigil? - Diocese of San Jose

Whitehorse is the largest city in northern Canada and sits along the Alaska Highway in southern Yukon. At this latitude, the city gets about 20 hours of daylight during the […]

www.dsj.org

 

[PeterT]

In regards to bilingual Masses, at our church only special Masses that there’s only one of (Holy Thursday, Easter Vigil, Thanksgiving Day) are bilingual. Our congregation is about 50/50 in terms of whom attends Masses in Spanish and Masses in English. In our bilingual Masses, we alternate the readings between English and Spanish except for the Gospel which is read both in English and Spanish by our deacon. Usually the choir chooses songs which are already writing in a bilingual manner and are in our missalette and hymnal (Today’s Missal (with Spanish insert) and Music Issue by Oregon Catholic Press (OCP)).

The problem with using Latin chants is that our Spanish choirs rarely (if ever) sing anything in Latin. Our English choirs do it in a more regular basis throughout the year so those attending Masses in English are familiar with the Latin chants while those attending the Masses in Spanish are not.

 

[PeterT]

phil19034:

Phemie:

Actually, that’s pretty standard for us, we’ve only had one Baptism at the Vigil in the 22 years I’ve been here and one year we had two boys confirmed. Receiving someone into full communion is usually done at a regular Mass and only 3 people that I can remember have been been received since I’ve been here.

Very sad to hear this.

It is sad. But nothing is being done to change it.

In fact, not much is being done to stem the exodus from the pews that we’ve seen over the last 15 years or so. If it weren’t for the 70+ members and the Filipinos who’ve immigrated in the last 7 years or so the church would be almost empty.

Wow, that is really sad. The Easter Vigil Mass is the most important Mass of the liturgical year. And while attendance at our Easter Vigil Masses very from year to year, the church is at the minimum 70% full (200+) and some years like this year, standing-room only. We usually have two to six people being baptized and anywhere from 12 to 24 people being confirmed and occasionally one or two being received into the Catholic Church. And our Easter Vigil choir tends to be extra large because it’s always a combined choir of all the regular choirs that sing at our church.

 

[Episcopalian]

Weirdest thing ever. I attended an Easter Vigil at 10am-1pm. Full blown liturgy with a blessing of the fire, holy water, baptism, Pascal calendar, and 14 chanted prophecies.

I have absolutely no idea why it was so early! They had vespers right after it too, except I didn’t stay for that.