One of my
favorite services of the year is the Easter Vigil. It hasn’t always been so because I am
learning that there’s different kinds of Catholics. When I began my reversion to the Catholic
Church I sought to give the least possible to my faith and still be “living”
within its boundaries. People who knew
the liturgical Calendar and celebrated each festivity were Catholics that I certainly
wasn’t aiming to become. I just wanted
to have my foot in the door enough so that one day I might see my brother in
heaven again. Often, I got invited to
Easter Vigil, but the three hour length and it starting at eleven PM always
motivated me to refuse. During Lent, I overheard
a group of young Catholic’s complaining about our diocese not getting a dispensation
to eat meat on Saint Patrick’s Day (which landed on a Friday this year). Most decided that since they were at an Irish
restaurant they were going to eat meat.
They laughed made jokes about aiming at purgatory and had their bacon. I belonged to that group once and was really
comfortable encouraging myself and others to not be so rigid; thus, a three
hour service on a Saturday night was something that I never saw myself
attending. Yet, faith is living and once
it has been planted deep in your soul it refuses to remain stagnant. Slowly year after year it grows and before I
knew it I had become a Catholic conscious about the liturgical calendar, who
attends Easter Vigil and who wants to do more in terms of my sanctification.
The first Easter
Vigil I attended was two years before I joined the RCIA ministry. At a parish near my home the service usually
begins at 7PM and the hour attracted me because I wouldn’t be forced to be out
so late. Since, I am a faithful Easter
Vigil attendee. I love starting outside
with only light from the fire and walking into a dark parish that slowly gets
lighted as the light from the paschal candle spreads. Then going through the readings beginning in
Genesis and witnessing God’s active plan throughout our salvific history. The music that accompanies each psalm - then
when the lights go on and the bells get rung to indicate that Jesus has risen -
is so beautiful! Then the moment we get
to sing “The Gloria” again is pure bliss.
If that wasn’t enough, this gets followed by the celebration of receiving
new members into our church. Obviously, as
a Catechist watching the men and women that I have helped throughout the year
in their RCIA process makes Easter Vigil much more special. It’s like a teacher watching her student’s
graduate, a moment of pride and happiness.
The line about to be baptized.
One adult baptism.
Confirmation time.
This year
we had fifteen adults and seven children get initiated into our church from our
parish. It’s the first year we have RCIA
for children at our parish so I learned that children can also receive all three
sacraments in one night. Two of the
children from our bunch were sons of a student we had in RCIA a couple years
ago! The night was full of beautiful
moments. Getting to witness the joy in
my spiritual kids is just beyond wonderful!
It was even neat because our priest is still learning how to celebrate Easter
Vigil and he was so nervous- he kept looking at my best friend for
direction. Afterwards the RCIA team and
some family members went out to break our Lenten fast and to go over the beauty
of the celebration we had just witnessed.
What a happy Easter night.
2017 RCIA Class
2017 RCIA Team
No comments:
Post a Comment