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Should you bring your kids to the Easter Vigil?

Should you bring your kids to the Easter Vigil?

Last updated on: January 31, 2017 at 3:10 pm by Kate Cousino

Should you bring your kids to the Easter Vigil? 2017-01-31T15:10:15-04:00 Kate Cousino

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I lay in bed this morning, kids piled on top of me, and talked to them about this weekend. About what the Triduum is, and what to expect, and what we will probably do. I talked about Holy Thursday and Good Friday and that pause for breath that is Holy Saturday, before the main event.

Before I got any farther, I was asked if Easter is the one with the Mass at night-time where there’s the really long song and all the lights are off and we all have candles…

Bring kids to the Easter Vigil?

Even if they fall asleep.

Even if you’re worried they’ll light each other on fire.

Even if they drive you to distraction?

I probably did all of those things as a kid but
all I can recollect is
the smell of candlewax,
and incense,
the weight of the dark, lifted
into shadows and shapes
by the sharing flame and
the quiet sounds of bodies shifting
and whispers,

the rich sung words rolling
out across the church, rolling
off the cornices and crevices, flowing
around the shadow-flicker shapes of
saints
and
patriarchs
and
echoing back from gold painted arches,
pillars and niches….

“Rejoice, heavenly powers! Sing, choirs of angels!
Exult, all creation around God’s throne!
Jesus Christ, our King, is risen!
Sound the trumpet of salvation!…”

Did I fidget? Probably. Probably
I poked my brothers,
scraped wax from the taper in my hand,
the curl of wax bunching up
on my fingernail. Probably
I wiggled,
whispered,
asked questions,
probably. But the words rolled over and around,
through.
in.

“This is the night when Christians everywhere,
washed clean of sin
and freed from all defilement,
are restored to grace and grow together in holiness.

“This is the night when Jesus Christ
broke the chains of death
and rose triumphant from the grave.
What good would life have been to us,
had Christ not come as our Redeemer?”

Do kids
understand ritual,
(pancakes on Saturday mornings,
cut just so.
Will I have cake, treat bags, at my party?
Will my friends sing Happy Birthday?
Do everything right, Mama)
tradition?
Do they?
Do children appreciate paradox? Riddles?

“O happy fault, O necessary sin of Adam…”

The hot wax dripped; the
paper circles meant to catch wax become
hats or
finger puppets
or fall, unheeded, to the floor.
And cooling trails of wax are molded
by young fingers,
always moving, always quick–
quick means alive,
like the quickening of buds in spring,
the green of the quick of a branch.
In the spring of my life the words
rolled into my heart,
my soul.

“Accept this Easter candle,
a flame divided but undimmed,
a pillar of fire that glows to the honor of God.

Let it mingle with the lights of heaven
May the morning Star which never sets find this flame
and continue bravely burning
to dispel the darkness of this night!
May the morning Star which never sets find this flame
still burning:
Christ, that Morning Star, who came back from the dead,
and shed his peaceful light on all mankind,
your Son who lives and reigns for ever and ever.”

Bring your children to the Vigil? Bring
children into the evening, the dark,
that they do not yet understand?
The night they feel around them,
the dark that they fear
is never fearsome here.
This warm, fragrant Night that portends morning,
that sings to them of Dawn…

Will they sit still? Probably
not. Will they understand?

Do I understand?

Do you? (Oh Happy Fault!)

We will wait for morning

together.

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