Vigil

Christ is risen! Alleluia!

I love the Easter Vigil! Such a beautiful service, such a wondrous miracle! I love the darkness and the light, water and oil, gold and red and incense for the five wounds and all manner of marvelous things.

I have always loved the Vigil. It makes me feel as though a huge weight has been lifted off of me and I can finally breathe again. I like to fast at least the second half of Holy Saturday - better the whole day if I can - because it helps me to feel like Lent is crushing me. It's probably strange that I like that. But I haven't done much else but pray since Maundy Thursday (as usual) so I'm not under any taxing physical strain that would make this impossible. I like to feel like it's crushing me under its weight, a weight that shifts so suddenly from total darkness to bright candlelight, from unbearable to sweet. Come to me all you who are weary and heavy laden, and I will give you rest; take my yoke upon your shoulders, for my yoke is easy and my burden is light. It is a bright sadness, this Holy Saturday, because it is transformed into dancing, and the night is turned into day.

I usually get teary-eyed during the Vigil - not because of the incense but because it makes me so emotional. I feel such relief and gladness, such overwhelming...such an overwhelming sense of God and of gratitude and amazement and my own unworthiness that is nonetheless lifted up and taken into Jesus' arms.

This year's Vigil was especially poignant. I went to a church where the service was absolutely beautiful. It was exactly perfect. They used the Book of Common Prayer, which I love: aside from its beauty, it was the first prayer book I ever owned, and it as much as anything has been a transforming force within the path of my faith. They used liturgical forms based on a Pre-Vatican II service, so I was able to incorporate gestures that have been suppressed by the new Latin Rite Mass. This might seem like a simple and unimportant thing, but it isn't. For the first time, I feel as though I am free to indulge my own preferences, my own feelings, to make the signs and motions that my heart has always been compelled to make but that I had to hide secretly within myself. I love the way the Vigil floods me, and I feel like I have come out of myself, that if I reach up - look up - just a little bit, I will see the Light of God. I enjoy turning my face upward and letting it sink into me, bathe me in its Glory, move my soul and my heart to joyful tears. Like a deer that longs for running streams, my soul longs for You, my God.

It was especially poignant as well because I have been to several Vigils involving adults being welcomed into the church, and adult baptism as well. It was always such a powerful moment, saying the Creed alongside them, renewing our baptismal vows. It was poignant this year to be at a Vigil knowing that I do not have a church, a congregation, a family to which I belong. Unlike the people with whom I have celebrated, I am not welcomed into any church. I honestly don't know if I would be: I am, after all, a little strange. Such a silly little child, so childlike and odd, different, exactly myself without compromise, exactly myself even when I am lost trying to follow the echo of God's voice into the deep darkness wherein I can perceive a bright shining light. I do not know that there will ever be a church that would truly welcome me as I am. But I do know that, regardless of that, we can nevertheless stand together in the sight of our Risen Lord and profess the same vows, swear by the same Creed. We will draw water joyfully from the springs of salvation.

I did not feel nearly afraid at Eucharist as usual: the Lord is kind and merciful to me; the God of mercy, the God Who saves. This itself, even if only for one day, such an overwhelming gift to know that I need not always flee the terrors of the night, nor stand alone before the light of day; God will not let harm come to me, no arrow strike me down, no evil settle in my soul.

Because I was able to bring home the candle I used during the service (yay!), I will light that in thankfulness for the final resurrection of our blessed dead, instead of lighting votive candles.

He is risen indeed! Alleluia!