Holy Saturday is a day of patient waiting when we, as Church, prayerfully reflect on the
passion and death of Christ and await his resurrection. It is a day of fast as we ready ourselves
for the feast of Easter.
The Easter Vigil in the Holy Night
The Easter Vigil is rich in symbol and ritual action. While we will not experience it in quite the
same way this year, it typically unfolds as follows, in four parts. The celebration begins around
the light of the Easter fire. The fire is blessed, the Easter Candle is lit and this light is shared
before we sing our great proclamation of Easter, the Exsultet. In the second part of the night
we vigil with the stories of our salvation, the great stories from the Old Testament proclaimed
in the light of our Easter faith and culminating in the proclamation of the resurrection in the
Gospel reading. Now in the third part we are ready to do what our whole Lenten journey has
been about – to welcome new members in baptism and to renew our own baptism before we
complete our celebration of the vigil with the Liturgy of the Eucharist in which we receive the
nourishment and grace of the Body of Christ to sustain us in the Christian journey.
On this greatest of nights in the life of the Church we keep vigil with the Lord. Although
this year’s Vigil cannot be celebrated in all its richness, in the darkness of these days we can
dare to rejoice. Because, through the resurrection, the risen Lord has conquered all darkness
and overcome the power of death.