ROME 23/04 – Day 09: Easter Sunday – Vigil notes

On this Easter Sunday the sun rose at 0638 and will set at 1946.  The Ave Maria is still in the 2000 cycle.

Last night the Vigil rites began at 2000 and went after midnight.  The place was packed.

I will spare you the stories about the pre-Vigil breaking of the candle and the rush to fix or get a new one.

The church was splendid in its darkness, like the silent tomb of Christ before the explosion of LIFE at its most meaningful.

First, lunch.  This bucatini all’amatriciana counterbalanced the dreck I was served the other day.

Ready for the vigil.

This is the folded chasuble.

Lumen Christi

Exultet.

Blessing water.

This, my friends, is the finest of all the photos of the evening.  It is a perfect visual explanation of why this parish is not only healing but thriving.  With all the post-Mass activity and people coming and going, the pastor is sweeping up some stray wax in the sacristy.

This says it all.

 

About Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

Fr. Z is the guy who runs this blog. o{]:¬)
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4 Comments

  1. JonPatrick says:

    Father could you explain sometime the purpose and significance of folded chasubles?

  2. ajf1984 says:

    That final photo puts paid to all those who view the priesthood as an exercise of personal power, to those who obsessively advocate for women priests as a matter of “equality,” as well as those who view everyone who embraces the Mass of the Ages as trapped in a backward, clericalist mentality. This priest of God, who likely just made the God-Man present on the altar shortly before this photo was taken, is humbly cleaning up. A life of service, summed up in this one, small and silent act. As our Reverend Host says, this photo indeed says it all!

    Christus surrexit, alleluia!
    Surrexit vere, alleluia!

  3. TheCavalierHatherly says:

    Re: Sweeping the floor

    As a tradesman, I am always shocked by other journeymen who complain about sweeping the floor, that “it’s beneath them.” Three things: 1) it’s pleasantly uncomplicated and cathartic, 2) you get paid for it, and 3) you always look like someone who cares when you do it. I’d sooner sweep the floor than go to a site meeting…

    It’s the sign of sham nobility to scorn the dirty work:

    “But it seemed to him that they took their time with the work; accordingly, as if in anger, he directed the Persian nobles who accompanied him to take a hand in hurrying on the wagons. And then one might have beheld a sample of good discipline: they each threw off their purple cloaks where they chanced to be standing, and rushed, as a man would run to win a victory, down a most exceedingly steep hill, , wearing their costly tunics and coloured trousers, some of them, indeed, with necklaces around their necks and bracelets on their arms; and leaping at once, with all this finery, into the mud, they lifted the wagons high and dry and brought them out more quickly than one would have thought possible.” Xenophon, Anabasis 1.5.8

  4. TheCavalierHatherly says:

    “I will spare you the stories about the pre-Vigil breaking of the candle and the rush to fix or get a new one.”

    I would love to read such a tale. Your praeteritio only fuels my curiosity.

    I would assume that a blowtorch could be employed in order to re-fuse the pieces.

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