Triduum – the history and symbols of Holy Saturday and Resurrection Sunday
2016- 03-26 13:43 Sebastian Adamkiewicz
St. Augustine night that he called the mother of all Christmas Eve. Reaching deep into the tradition of the ancient mysteries of the Liturgy of the Easter Vigil was a big theater in which the force of gesture and symbol combined with the rich theological content.
See also: Easter and the beginnings of Christianity
Read also: Triduum – history and symbols: Good Friday
If I try to chronologically arranged various rites of the Triduum, taking into account that most of them were primitive, they would have to reverse the order. The first was not a Holy Thursday (because here the habits formed at the latest), or Good Friday. It all started from one wielkosobotniej night, which each year become had witnessed the extraordinary liturgy introducing Christians to Easter Resurrection. The answer why he arranged the fate of the liturgy of the Triduum seems to be very simple and logical. In the first centuries of Christianity for believers the center of their faith was the resurrection of Jesus. This gave it a new sense of religion and filled her content. Without a strong belief that Christ has conquered death, the only dimension of Christianity would be revolutionary teaching master of Nazareth. But here it was something more – to overturn the logic of life upside down and open the perspective of eternal life. Therefore Passover for Christians ceased to be a mere commemoration of the liberation of the Jews from slavery in Egypt, but it has gained a universal dimension and transcendental. The man – in their opinion – was triggered from the bondage of past life and was reborn. Therefore Resurrection Sunday was the feast of feasts and the essence of the Christian faith.
Byzantine fresco depicting the Resurrection (Fig. Gunnar Bach Pedersen, public domain).
The introduction to the celebration of the Easter Vigil was celebrated in the night between Holy Saturday and Easter. Although the modern word “Eve” is more associated with the smell of borscht and dumplings with mushrooms and cabbage, which gorge on the day before Christmas, originally meant simply liturgy, which began after dark the day before the actual holiday. Due to the ancient track of time celebration of this basically already belonged to the holidays. Night was seen, however, as a link, as an undetermined time, which – due to the lack of sunlight – it was difficult to clearly measure and close the schema hours. As in the ancient mysteries collected so at night to go into the Haymarket mystery of the upcoming holidays. Therefore vigils were character drama. They began in silence, but with every minute tension grew to reach climax already on holidays. Czuwaniami night were filled with the richness of symbols and gestures, mystical raptures and spiritual emotions.
That is why Easter Vigil, but began on Holy Saturday, so you really have to it was not. It was a celebration of the transition starting Easter Sunday. Sam Holy Saturday was a day of silence: no bells tolled, not distributed communion. Ecclesial community seemed to be shattered memory of Christ’s death. Even when he developed habits of Good Friday, one of them was to be shattering at the end of the liturgy of the altar table. Under the weight of axes he turned into a heap unfit for anything boards. Church on Holy Saturday froze, like the first apostles were scattered on the Master’s death, so their spiritual descendants remained in disarray. Fear break was only the night prayer, which construct a community rebuild anew, giving new meaning.
Blessing of the fire – one of the most important elements of the liturgy of the Easter Vigil (Fig. John Stephen Dwyer / Boston, was published under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported ). Liturgy of the Easter Vigil was not ready, of course, from the beginning the celebration. Its form was shaped by centuries of gaining new elements and developing them. It started probably from the normal mode, accompanied by reading passages of the Old and New Testaments. First, from the VII-VIII century, sacramentaries guidance on readings indicate that this night it was the objective to present the history of the world from a biblical perspective. There are so many sections on creation, the flood, Abraham’s or liberation of the Jews from Egypt. They were complemented by the prophecy of Ezekiel and Isaiah, announcing the coming of the Messiah. Read from four to twelve passages from the Old Testament. Reading supplemented with descriptions of the resurrection, according to St. Matthew. Resurrection treated not only as a spiritual phenomenon, but the center of human history. Everything that has happened in the world aspired to that particular day. Thus, the history of the world was the scene of a powerful drama that culminated in the death and rising to the life of Jesus Christ.
Clearly, therefore, emphasized was the fact that everything that happened after the resurrection was a new story, a man a new man. For this reason, the ritual of the Easter Vigil probably quite precociously connect the baptism and entrance into the community of new Christians. The liturgy, in which repeated all the truths of the faith, and that touched the deepest of which was faith in Christ seemed to be the best time to expand the group of believers. Catechumen, after a series of readings obnażających sense understanding of the world by the followers of Christ, he could have yet to withdraw. For this occurred significance of Easter as a passage. The newly baptized consisted of the same in a different dimension of reality, and by immersing themselves in the water washes himself off the old world. So on April 24 387 years was baptized St. Augustine, who later Easter Vigil called the mother of all vigils. They baptized not only adults. The certificate pilgrim Egeria shows that in the fourth century, baptism was given on that day to children. Along with the progress of the Christianization of adult baptisms were indeed less and less. If it did happen mainly concerned residents pagan lands that belonged to the Christian world. Therefore, among others, it is assumed that if there was a baptism of Mieszko I in 966, it happened April 14, the day on which this year took place the liturgy of the Easter Vigil. For baptism, however, not the case in the main temple, but in the adjoining Baptistery. It was only with him, the newly baptized, dressed in white robes, they went to church to participate in the further parts of the liturgy.
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