!Easter vigil
 --- 
agk's diary 
17 April 2022 @ 0312 UTC
 --- 
written on iPad via ssh.sdf.org
at kitchen table while dishwasher runs
and everyone else sleeps
 --- 

At the end Father chanted "Now our Mass is ended."
When Evy chanted "thanks be to God," she meant it! 
She expected 30 minutes of church, not two and a 
half hours!

It was my first time in the local Roman Catholic 
parish in three years. My beloved history professor 
Christensen, a medievalist and the only school-
teacher I think understood me well, designed it. A 
small, open, airy space, it abides by ancient rules 
of sacred architecture. I felt her beautiful 
spirit. Our last visit, Evy and I attended her 
funeral and I cried in my old Chevy truck.

My first Easter Vigil I was 15. Dad took us to a 
Carmelite monastery in Indiana. My protestant 
family did our best to follow along with the dis-
orientingly beautiful liturgy. It's Christians' 
oldest service. 

You feel echoes of all human history in the Easter 
Vigil. The fire's lit at the beginning, kindling 
light for the Pascal candle. The creation story's 
read later, during the service of the word (air, 
spirit). Of course there are services of water 
(baptism) and earth (holy Eucharist). And what's
more primal than staying up all night keeping vigil 
with the dead body of the One who truly loved you?

You feel the Passover seder---the story of Exodus 
from Egypt is read, we stay up late, share bread 
and wine, sacred story and family. Galilee and Rome 
are there in Gospel and epistle, the central story 
of our faith, we become Easter.

You feel feudal Europe. Priest and acolytes, dark-
ness save candlelight, plainsong echoing chancel to 
transept to nave, gold woven in vestments, organ 
bellows. Outside fire burns, inside incense sweet-
ens our time together. You feel today's postcolon-
ial church, aging Irish and French Catholics out-
numbered by young Africans, Filipinas, Central 
and South Americans, all jubilant:

Christ is risen! Alleluia!

Spring began when Evy and I turned garden and 
planted peas. Evy made hot bacon dressing for 
greens of dandelions she dug. Bitter, sweet, fat, 
spring began. Now with Him we rise---from death to 
a new and everlasting spring.

We ain't done! At sunrise we'll join the Southern 
Baptists in the country cemetery down the rural 
road. They put on a fine breakfast after the 
service. Our baby won't be the only baby there. 

I get ecumenical at Easter, as dad taught. With 
all our faithful kin we proclaim,

Hell's fury's calmed, death sting's gone! 

Christ is risen indeed!