The Catholic bulletin. [volume] (St. Paul, Minn.) 1911-1995, 1913-03-22
THE CEREMONIES OF HOLY
SATURDAY..
Originally Preceded Easter Sundays
Dawn-Paschal Candle Type of
Christ.

Christ.
In order to understand the Holy
Saturday services the one thing we
have to fix indelibly upon our minds,
writes Reverend Herbert Thurston, S.
j., in Lent and Holy Week." is that
we are assisting at night vigil; not
that belonging to the night between
Good Friday and Holy Saturday, but
that of the night which precedes the
dawn of Easter. This, | grant, re-
quires rather an effort of the imagin-
alton 1t is difficult to persuade one
self at eight o'clock on Saturday
morning that the sun has already set,
that our watch" is nearly over, that
more than twenty-four hours have
ELAPSED since our Blessed Lord was
laid in the tomb That is, however,
the effort of the imagination which the
Church requires us to make. OF
course originally the service did not
begin until the evening. Even as late
as the ninth or tenth century it is eX-
pressly stipulated by liturgical writer's
that the Gloria in Excelsis should not
be sung until the stars had begun to
appear, while in primitive times 1t
would seem that the service was later
still, and lasted almost until dawn on
Easter Sunday.
Now on this sacred vigil there were
two great things to be done. In the
first place the faithful there gathered
together were to commemorate the
Resurrection of Jesus Christ; and Sec
ondly, partly as a sort of figure of that
Resurrection, many of the catechu-
mems who had been tried by long
apprenticeship and had been found
worthy to bear the name of Christ
were to receive the grace of Holy
Baptism.
Blessing of PaschaI Candle.
In order to carry into effect the first
and more important of these ideas,
to realize, that is, the Resurrection
of our Lord, various ceremonies were
gradually adopted, and amongst these
the most conspicuous was the blessing
of the paschal candle. In this case
we have, l believe, a ceremony that
was really designed from the begin
ming with strictly mystical and SYM
bolical meaning There are not many
such, but | fancy that this is one OF
them. The paschal candle was not, as
it has been pretended, merely an ex-
ceptionally large candle which was
used at the vigil of Easter-eve because
the watching was longer than usual.
1t was intended amongst the early
Jewish Christians, a people who like
other oriental races clothed all their
thought in figures and parallels, that
this great light should typify Him who
is the "True Light which cometh into
this world Him in whose light the
catechumens, that evening to be "illum'
mated" were to participate. He was
the great Light, their little fame was
only derived from Him. In what more
speaking way could the Resurrection
be represented than as "blaze Of
light" "a light for the revelation
of the Gentiles and the glory of Thy
people Israeli"
The clean wax of which the candle
was made, typified the sacred t1esf
of Jesus Christ, which He had taker
from the most pure substance of His
Virgin Mother. No wonder that the
pious thought of the early rubricians
went on to recognize in the wick O
the candle an image of the human
soul of Christ, without which Hi:
sacred flesh were inert and lifeless
and to see in the blessed flame which
crowned it a figure of the Divine Per
sonality of the Word, coming dowl
from heaven to give life to the world
Whether this flame was the new fir
struck from the veins of flint" from
the rock which was Christ, as thu
present ceremonial prescribes, o
whether, as we learn was the custom
amongst Teutonic peoples in the nintl
century, the fire literally came from
heaven, being obtained from the hea
of the suns rays through burning
glass, or whether, as in the oldes
forms of the Roman ritual, the ligh
was that hidden and mystically buriet
with our Saviour on Good Friday, tn
singular aptness of the symbolism il
upon. That the candle should b
lighted at intervals from Easter t.
Ascension Day, and that it SHOULD
have imbedded in it five grains of in
cense, emblematic of the five Sacre
Wounds, which st. Thomas was bic
den to touch and examine, as tn
precious jewels which marked tina
glorified Body, was only a develop
ment of the idea identifying this pas
chal light with the risen life of on
Saviour. Taking it all in all there
perhaps no more perfect specimen c
Christian symbolism to be found i
the whole of Catholic liturgy than ths
of the paschal candle.
THE RITES PRECEDING MASS