Abstract
The Easter Triduum has become the high point of the liturgical year for communities throughout the Roman Church thanks to the reforms of Pope Pius XII and those following the Second Vatican Council. Sometimes forgotten, however, is the establishment of a three-day Triduum of Easter rather than the previous Triduum before Easter, now beginning with evening Mass on Holy Thursday and comprising Good Friday, Holy Saturday and all of Easter Sunday. The post-conciliar reform of the liturgy of Easter Sunday is overlooked, especially the changes to Lauds and Vespers, which have made of Easter Sunday a full third day of the Paschal Triduum in three distinct parts reflecting three moments in the day of the Lord's resurrection. The articulated liturgical celebrations of Easter Sunday, especially due to the revised offices of Lauds and Vespers, are presented here. Considerations regarding future changes in the Triduum are also suggested such as restoring distinct elements of Tenebrae for Friday and Saturday, Baptismal Vespers, and emphasizing the ambo as the empty tomb.
Keywords
Introduction
Placing renewed emphasis in the liturgy upon the Lord's paschal mystery—his death, rising from the dead and glorious ascension—was mentioned explicitly by Pope St Paul VI when he promulgated the revised calendar for the Roman rite in 1969: Ex quo sequitur, opus esse, ut idem paschale Christi mysterium in instauratione anni liturgici, cuius normae ab ipsa Sancta Synodo tradita[e] sunt, in clariore luce ponatur, sive ad ordinationem Proprii, quod vocant, de Tempore ac de Sanctis, sive ad Calendarii Romani recognitionem quod attinet.
1
[From that it follows that the restoration of the liturgical year, whose norms have been handed down by the same Holy Synod, must put the paschal mystery of Christ into clearer light, with respect to the arrangement of what is called the Proper of the Season and the Proper of the Saints, as well as in the revision of the Roman Calendar.]
It is very clear from reading the rubrics of the liturgical books promulgated since 1969 for the eucharistic celebration and for the Hours that the Sacred Triduum is a Paschal Triduum, incorporating all of Easter Sunday as its third day. One sees the desire for changing the concluding period of Lent and the beginning of Eastertide already in the early stages of the work of the Consilium charged with preparing the new liturgical books. 2 Awareness, however, among Roman rite Catholics that the Paschal Triduum runs from Thursday evening to Sunday evening seems patchy fifty years after the promulgation of the reformed Liturgy of the Hours. Even among those who know of the twentieth-century changes to Holy Week and Easter, and in quite a number of places around the world, there are carefully prepared celebrations of the suppressed offices of Tenebrae. While these old offices remain out of kilter with the new Triduum, those familiar with the reforms, especially among English speaking laity and clergy in Western countries, often do not see how they are incompatible. The Easter Vigil is experienced today perhaps as the high point of the Triduum, but also as its last celebration since it is the final “peculiar” celebration in a series which began on Palm Sunday. Within all of this, the literature seems to have overlooked the radical re-working of the Hours of the Roman rite for Easter Sunday, or rather more specifically the changes to the Hours of Lauds and Vespers on that day. 3 These two major Hours, along with the new Gospel reading at the Mass during the day and the alternative, optional Gospel reading for evening Masses on Easter Sunday, offer to Roman rite Catholics a series of thematically distinct celebrations which have made of Easter Sunday a third day with three major liturgical moments at night, in the morning, and in the evening. These liturgical moments, while celebrating the whole paschal mystery, reflect three key moments at the time of the Lord's resurrection.
My principal purpose in this article is to lay before the reader the articulated liturgical celebrations of Easter Sunday in the Roman rite since Vatican II which bring the worshiper through the three significant moments almost in an historical fashion: the Lord's resurrection, the somewhat divergent experiences of the women and other disciples on Easter Sunday morning, and the experiences of the disciples in Emmaus and Jerusalem on Easter Sunday evening. Before attending to this purpose, I shall review the changes made to the Roman liturgy in the decades preceding the new liturgical year, the new Roman Missal, and the new Liturgy of the Hours, which somewhat prepared the transition from one kind of Triduum to the other. In the absence of enunciated principles for reforming the liturgies of Easter Sunday, I shall present the articulated Easter Sunday liturgies as they appear today in the revised liturgical books, which the literature has somewhat overlooked. Following a section on the reception of the revised Hours of Easter Sunday, I shall conclude with some observations on the strengths and weaknesses of the Holy Week and Easter Sunday liturgies, adding suggestions for further change.
Tempering Passiontide and Holy Week
In the 1950s, Pope Pius XII made a series of changes to the Roman liturgy of Holy Week, which aimed, among other things, to popularize the three major liturgies in the Triduum that had come to be celebrated at times in the morning that were both unfitting and inconvenient for the lay faithful, especially the Mass of the Lord's Supper, the Liturgy of the Passion, and the Easter Vigil. 4 The changes began in 1951 with the optional celebration of the Vigil during the night of Easter along with some internal modifications to the Vigil itself such as the reduction in the number of Old Testament readings from twelve to four. 5 Only from Holy Week of 1956 was the celebration of the Vigil at night made obligatory when reformed evening or afternoon celebrations on Thursday and Friday were also introduced. 6 The changes made to these three major liturgies caused the relatively popular Liturgy of the Hours of Thursday, Friday, and Saturday, commonly called Tenebrae or Officium tenebrarum, or Ciemna jutrznia (“dark Lauds”) in Polish, to be restored to morning celebration. The popularity of the three major celebrations at the end of Holy Week seems to have exceeded that of the Hours. Transferring the Hours of Tenebrae to a less suitable time for the lay faithful whose professional or personal obligations prevented their attending long morning liturgies was not controversial. In fact, with respect to the success of the restored evening celebrations, one reads the following from Cardinal Ferdinando Antonelli's address to the Liturgical Congress in Assisi in 1956, “the attendance at the sacred rites has surpassed the most optimistic expectations everywhere.” 7
The Pian reform of Holy Week in the 1950s, along with other modifications to the liturgy, had been carried out with the assistance of a commission which existed for a period of approximately twelve years before Vatican II was called. Some of the documentation which the commission produced has been made available in recent years and shows that there was an intention to base any liturgical reform on firm principles such as facilitating the active participation of the people, responding to new social circumstances, restoring coherence to celebrations such as changing their time of celebration, or re-establishing the administration of baptism to the Easter Vigil, where the very existence of many elements of the liturgy was due to the practice of baptizing during the celebration. Baptism during the Vigil had become quite rare by the twentieth century. Reform was to be organic, or “unitary, comprehensive, systemic,” and not piecemeal. 8 Although from a distance the reform might be perceived to have been introduced without an overarching plan, changes were to be conceived and prepared while keeping in mind the relationship between the various elements. 9 To be correctly understood, the reform of the Hours of Easter Sunday after Vatican II, which is the object of this article, must be considered as part of a larger program of reform.
The changes following the Second Vatican Council (1962–1965) saw, in fact, the suppression of all the peculiar elements in the Office of Tenebrae. The post-conciliar reform of the Liturgy of the Hours caused the length of the Office of Readings and Lauds to remain constant throughout the liturgical year (apart from the optional extended Office of Vigils). The Lamentations of Jeremiah and their memorable tone for singing were entirely removed from the typical arrangement of the Hours in Holy Week. 10 An optional and alternative two-year cycle of scripture readings for the Office of Readings were subsequently assigned the Lamentations to Holy Week in alternate years. 11 Also, the special ceremonies carried out during the Hours were discontinued (gradual extinguishing of candles, the strepitus). The two-week period before Easter, called Passiontide, was tempered in order to emphasize Lent as a single period. 12 Veiling of crosses and images of the saints during Passiontide was discontinued (although permitted if the Bishops’ Conference so decided). Doxologies were no longer dropped at the conclusion of psalms and canticles. The formal stripping of the altars on Holy Thursday evening was discontinued. 13 Finally, the expression “Passion” for referring to the two-week period was largely avoided. The great somber emphasis upon the Lord's Passion for the fourteen days before Easter was thus attenuated, although not entirely dropped. 14 In this way, a different balance was established with less dramatic anticipation of the sadness of the Lord's death, whose expressions in word and image were rather peripheral and had come to dominate the end of Lent, overpowering the themes of baptismal preparation for catechumens and recalling participation in Christ's paschal mystery for all the faithful.
Holy Week and Paschal Vigil Reforms Incomplete?
Commentaries on the reform of Holy Week, those by Pope Pius XII and those following the Second Vatican Council, focus upon the three major celebrations of Holy Thursday, Good Friday, and Easter night, and to a lesser extent upon that of Palm Sunday. Patrick Prétot notes the development of a theology which valued once more the significance of the whole paschal mystery of the Lord's death and resurrection, and was popularized by the liturgical reforms of the 1950s. 15
Prétot mentions the desire to create a Paschal Triduum, but how the liturgy came to express this new Triduum seems largely overlooked.
Another commentator, the late Patrick Regan, notes that the Paschal Vigil reformed after the Second Vatican Council celebrates not just one, let us say historical, element of the Lord's paschal mystery. Constructed of four parts—light, word, baptism, Eucharist—all of which celebrate the whole paschal mystery but in different ways. The progress from one part to the next is a progress from the human construct of the paschal fire and candle to divine word, which is proclaimed, to sacramental participation in baptism and the Eucharist. 16 Regan's observation will assist us later in showing how the liturgical celebrations of Easter Sunday celebrate the whole paschal mystery yet commemorate the different moments of the day the Lord rose from the dead.
A third Benedictine monk and liturgical scholar, Anscar Chupungco, observed in the late 1980s that the effort to make Easter Sunday a full day of the Triduum and its fitting conclusion had not been fulfilled. 17 He looked to the past for inspiration in how to make Easter Sunday a full day of the Triduum, while he overlooked the development in the Hours promulgated in 1971. He seems not to have considered either the three moments of Easter Sunday recounted in the four Gospels as points to recall and mark liturgically at distinct times of the day: the Lord's resurrection, the experiences of the women at the tomb in the morning, and the experiences of the other disciples in the evening.
The Tridentine and Pian Hours of Easter Sunday
The purpose of this article is to show how the Pauline Hours of Easter Sunday have been modified to help make Easter Sunday a full day of the Paschal Triduum. To better perceive the changes a review of the Hours of Easter Sunday in the earlier, Tridentine tradition follows.
Before the changes to Holy Week introduced by Pope Pius XII, the Easter Vigil occurred on Holy Saturday after the office of None, concluding with an abbreviated office of Vespers. This latter hour consisted in Psalm 116 (117 in the Masoretic numbering), the shortest psalm in the psalter, with the Alleluia antiphon, followed by the Magnificat with the antiphon Vespere autem sabbati (from Matt 28:1, the beginning of the Gospel passage sung earlier during the Vigil), and a concluding prayer, which effectively also served as the post-communion prayer. 18 The Magnificat antiphon was used again at Compline, the only time in the year when the two canticles were sung under the same antiphon.
On Easter Sunday, the five antiphons sung over the psalmody at Lauds were used again at Vespers.
19
The psalms and canticles were no different from Sunday in the psalter (outside of penitential seasons in the case of the Pius X psalter). The antiphons are taken from the account of Easter Sunday morning in the Gospel according to Matthew, sung at the Easter Vigil, once the two Marys have arrived at the tomb. Thematically, then, the antiphons focus upon the moment of the earthquake, the arrival of an angel who proceeded to open the tomb, the reaction of the guards, and the words which the angel spoke to the women. Here are those antiphons with scripture references: Angelus autem Dómini descéndit de cælo, et accédens revólvit lápidem, et sedébat super eum, allelúja, allelúja. [Matt 28:2b] / The angel of the Lord came down from heaven, rolled back the stone, and sat upon it, alleluia, alleluia.
Et ecce terræmótus factus est magnus: Angelus enim Dómini descéndit de cælo, allelúja. [Matt 28:2, also Ps 75(76)] / And low there was a great earthquake: the angel of the Lord came down from heaven, alleluia.
Erat autem aspéctus ejus sicut fulgur, vestiménta autem ejus sicut nix, allelúja, allelúja. [Matt 28:3] / His face was like lightning, his clothing like the snow, alleluia, alleluia.
Præ timóre autem ejus extérriti sunt custódes, et facti sunt velut mórtui, allelúja. [Matt 28:4] / For fear of him the guards trembled, and they became like dead men, alleluia.
Respóndens autem Angelus, dixit muliéribus: Nolíte timére: scio enim quod Jesum quǽritis, allelúja. [Matt 28:5] / Replying, the angel said to the women: Do not fear: I know you seek Jesus, alleluia.
The Gospel passage sung at the Vigil ends before the women depart from the tomb and meet the risen Lord (Matt. 28:8-9) and the office antiphons also omit any encounter with the Lord. Recall that the psalmody antiphons of Lauds were sung again at Vespers.
Meanwhile, the Gospel canticle antiphons at Lauds and Vespers are from the Gospel passage of the Missa in die, Mark 16:1-7. The Benedictus antiphon was: Et valde mane una sabbatórum véniunt ad monuméntum, orto jam sole, allelúja.
20
[Mark 16:2, corresponding with Matt 28:1] / And very early on the first day of the week they came to the tomb, when the sun had risen, alleluia.
At Vespers, the Magnificat antiphon was from a subsequent verse of Mark's account: Et respiciéntes vidérunt revolútum lápidem: erat quippe magnus valde, allelúja.
21
[Mark 16:4] / And when they looked they saw the stone rolled away: for it was very great, alleluia.
Note again that these antiphons concern the women (three according to Mark) at the empty tomb before either they or the other disciples encounter the risen Lord. No encounter with the risen Lord was mentioned in the Roman eucharistic liturgy or in the Hours of Easter Sunday until the 1960s.
The changes introduced under Pope Pius XII caused a full office of Vespers of Holy Saturday to be constructed, largely from Vespers of Holy Thursday, but with the first antiphon replaced by “Hódie afflíctus sum valde, sed cras solvam víncula mea” (Today I am greatly afflicted, but tomorrow I will break my chains) and the Magnificat antiphon becoming “Príncipes sacerdótum et pharisǽi muniérunt sepúlcrum, signántes lápidem, cum custódibus” (The chief priests and the Pharisees made the sepulchre sure with guards, sealing the stone). 22 This office of Vespers, celebrated before the Vigil, is notable for being of Holy Saturday, not Sunday, with a focus clearly upon the time before the resurrection with the Magnificat antiphon explicitly referring to the sealing and guarding of the tomb. The reformed Easter Vigil of 1951 contained no hour of the Divine Office, taking the former Magnificat antiphon Vespere autem as the Communion antiphon. 23 The 1952 version of the Vigil, which was indicated to be used as an option for the following three years but, in fact, was celebrated also in 1955, gained a short version of Lauds similar to the abbreviated Vespers in the Tridentine Vigil. This shortened version consisted of Psalm 150, the final psalm of Lauds in the Tridentine psalter before Pius X, with the Alleluia antiphon, and the Benedictus with the antiphon taken from the Tridentine Office of Easter Sunday Lauds Et valde mane. 24 Those who did not participate in the Easter Vigil were to say Lauds in pre-Pius XII form. Apart from the new Holy Saturday Vespers, the changes to the Hours were slight and, with respect to Easter Sunday, of little significance. These details concerning Lauds at the Easter Vigil were maintained in the 1956 liturgy of Holy Week, which was obligatory for the Roman rite from that year. 25
The Pauline Liturgy of Easter Sunday
The Pauline Paschal Vigil and Mass during the Day
The Easter Vigil in the Missal of Pope Paul VI (1970) contained no part of the Liturgy of the Hours, marking a break from both the Tridentine Vigil and the Vigil of Pius XII (excepting its 1951 form). 26 The Pauline Vigil took on the three-year cycle for the Gospel reading: Matthew 28:1-10 (adding the encounter between the two Marys and the risen Lord), Mark 16:1-7 simply taken from the pre-conciliar Missa in die, and Luke 24:1-12 (including Peter's experience of the empty tomb). 27 To the Mass of the Day was assigned John 20:1-9, a text which includes the arrival of Peter with the other disciple and their experience of the empty tomb, giving the option, however, of repeating the Gospel of the Vigil. 28 At evening Masses on Easter Sunday, the option was given to read the account of the disciples on the way to Emmaus; the meal at Emmaus, where the same disciples recognized the Lord in the breaking of bread; and their return to Jerusalem that evening, where their experiences are recounted to the others (Luke 24:13-35).
In the choice of Gospel passages for celebrating Mass on Easter Sunday, one sees the experiences of the disciples other than the women, introduced into the liturgy after Vatican II. The passages which concern the disciples directly are introduced into the Vigil only in Year C of the lectionary. The Mass during the day includes, preferably, the experience of Peter and John at the empty tomb and the witness of the women; only in the evening is the possibility of the Emmaus-Jerusalem story. The appearance of the Lord in the locked room in Jerusalem on that evening, however, is not part of any eucharistic celebrations on Easter Sunday but kept for the following Sunday's Mass, whose first Vespers until 1971 maintained the antiphon from that very Gospel passage: Cum esset sero die illo. The antiphon was transferred under Pope Paul VI from the Octave Sunday to Easter Sunday Vespers. 29
The Pauline Hours of Easter Sunday
The 2nd edition of Ordo cantus Officii offered two other antiphons, but maintaining the same theme, although the reference to the three youths in the fire was established for use with the corresponding canticle, Daniel 3:57–88.56: Redemptor noster surrexit de sepulcro, qui liberavit tres pueros de camino ignis, alleluia. [CAO 4589] / Our Redeemer has risen from the sepulchre, he who freed the three youths from the hearth of fire, alleluia.
Crucifixus resurrexit, alleluia.
34
[CAO 1956] / The crucified one has risen, alleluia.
The Benedictus antiphon of Easter Sunday Lauds remained unchanged from the Tridentine liturgy, recalling the initial experiences of the women recounted in Mark's Gospel: Et valde mane.
35
In the 1st edition of Ordo cantus Officii, a three-year cycle of Benedictus antiphons was offered: Year a: Vespere autem sabbati—from the pre-Pius XII Vespers [AM
36
450]
Year b: Et valde mane—from the pre-Pius XII Lauds [AM 456]
Year c: Currebant duo simul [John 20:4] [AM 465]
37
This three-year proposal was discontinued in the 2nd edition of Ordo cantus Officii and the original Tridentine Benedictus antiphon Et valde mane was restored to annual use, thus having the breviary text and Gregorian chant repertoire converge on this detail. 38
The Pauline Easter Sunday Lauds, rather than a recapitulation of the Paschal Vigil's Gospel account as it had been in the Tridentine liturgy, became in 1971 more a recapitulation of the paschal mystery and the faithful's participation in it. The eucharistic celebration during the day expanded from 1970 to include the resurrection appearance to the women.
Meanwhile, the psalmody antiphons at post-conciliar Vespers serve somewhat as a recapitulation of Easter morning. The first antiphon recalls the arrival of the women at the tomb (Matt 28:1). The second antiphon includes the angel's invitation to the women to look into the tomb (Matt 28:6). The third antiphon has the angel's words to the women to go to the disciples with news of the resurrection (Matt 28:7, omitted in the Gospel passage at the Tridentine and Pian Vigils). Then, the Magnificat antiphon, Cum esset sero die illo, moved to Easter Sunday from the following Sunday, consists in the text from John's Gospel and concerns the Lord's appearing to the disciples in the locked room in Jerusalem on Easter Sunday evening. Other than the optional Gospel reading at evening Masses, this Magnificat antiphon of Easter Sunday Vespers is the only Roman rite liturgical text of Easter Sunday which mentions the encounter between the risen Lord and the disciples other than the women. Its introduction is a notable development in the post-conciliar liturgy. 39 Here are the full texts of the post-conciliar antiphons for Easter Sunday Vespers.
Venerunt ad monumentum Maria Magdalene, et altera Maria, videre sepulcrum, alleluia. 40 [Matt 28:1] / Mary Magdalene, with the other Mary, came to the tomb, to see the sepulchre, alleluia.
Venite et videte locum ubi positus erat Dominus, alleluia alleluia [Matt 28:6]. 41 / Come, ye, and see where the Lord was laid, alleluia, alleluia.
Ait Iesus: Nolite timere; ite, nuntiate fratribus meis ut eant in Galilaeam; ibi me videbitis, alleluia. [Matt 28:10] / Jesus said: Do not fear; go, ye, and announce to my brothers they are to go to Galilee; they will see me there, alleluia.
Magnificat: Cum esset sero die illo una sabbatorum, et fores essent clausae, ubi erant discipuli congregati, stetit Iesus in medio et dixit eis: Pax vobis, alleluia [John 20:19]. 42 / When it was evening on the same day, the first of the week, the doors were shut there where the disciples were gathered, Jesus stood in the midst and said to them: Peace be with you, alleluia.
The 1st edition of Ordo cantus Officii made no change to the choice of antiphons in the breviary for singing in Gregorian chant but indicates where the chant melodies for the texts might be found.
43
It omits entirely any indication for the canticle from Apocalypse, which it did in every case of the canticle's use throughout the year. The 2nd edition of Ordo cantus Officii indicates the CAO numbers (see footnote 30) and a third antiphon for the canticle from Apocalypse, almost exactly that in the breviary: Ite, nuntiate fratribus meis, alleluia, ut eant in Galilaeam: ibi me videbunt, alleluia, alleluia, alleluia [Matt 28:7].
44
[CAO 3462] / Go, ye, and announce to my brothers, alleluia, that they are to go to Galilee: they will see me there, alleluia, alleluia, alleluia.
One should not be surprised by the selection of texts for these antiphons since the role of Vespers on Easter Sunday in commemorating the apparitions to the disciples is mentioned clearly in the General Instruction of the Liturgy of the Hours: “[…] convenit Vesperas celebrari modo sollemniore ad tam sacri diei occasum colendum et apparitiones commemorandas, quibus Dominus suis discipulis se ostendit”. 45 Vespers and the optional Gospel passage at Mass on Easter Sunday evening have come to mark clearly the appearance of the Lord to the disciples on the evening of the first day of the week as recorded in scripture.
Beyond the Liturgical Books: Reception of the Revised Hours
While we have focused so far on the liturgical books setting out the Hours of Easter Sunday, and have considered briefly the Tridentine Hours in the latter part of Holy Week, we have overlooked the request of the Second Vatican Council for the Hours to become in practice more widely celebrated by the whole people of God: Curent animarum pastores ut Horae praecipuae, praesertim Vesperae, diebus dominicis et festis sollemnioribus, in ecclesia communiter celebrentur. Commendatur ut et ipsi laici recitent Officium divinum, vel cum sacerdotibus, vel inter se congregati, quin immo unusquisque solus.
46
[Pastors of souls should ensure that the Hours, especially Vespers, should be celebrated together in church on Sundays and the solmen feasts. The lay faithful are encouraged to recite the divine office, either with the priests, or among themselves, or even individually.]
On the whole, the Liturgy of the Hours is not a significant part of the liturgical experience of the lay faithful to this day. 47 Many reasons are proposed for its lack of popularity among the lay faithful, but, as Annibale Bugnini comments, the Hours were revised after the Council with clerics and religious in mind rather than the lay faithful and parish-based celebration, although such a view would be a simplification of the characteristics of the typical edition produced in 1971. 48
Contrasting the general paucity of the Hours among the lay faithful after the Council, the effective suppression of Tenebrae has been resisted even in anticipated celebrations on the evenings of Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday. 49 Certain elements from these special Hours at the end of Holy Week have been permitted by the Congregation for Divine Worship, such as the Lamentations of Jeremiah in Year One of the two-year cycle of scripture readings for the Office of Readings during Holy Week or more recently as canticles for the extended Vigil. 50 Another example is the peculiar medieval preces or Versus litanici of the Gallican tradition maintained by the Order of Preachers. 51 Yet, unofficial variants of Tenebrae with the relatively dramatic elements abound even on Holy Thursday morning or Spy Wednesday evening, and so occurring before the Paschal Triduum begins. It is as if the reforms of Pius XII and those following the Second Vatican Council, and the principles upon which they were carried out, have been forgotten.
Anscar Chupungco is correct that Easter Sunday is not experienced by the faithful, clergy or laity, as a full day of the Triduum regardless of the textual changes to the Hours examined earlier. Perhaps his suggestion to take inspiration from the past is worth considering. Both the General Instruction of the Hours 52 and the circular letter on the paschal feasts from the Congregation for Divine Worship in 1988 encourage one ancient custom, baptismal Vespers on Easter Sunday evening. 53 Wilfred Sumani has provided a review of the origins and development of baptismal Vespers and, in examining the euchology of the Roman tradition, brings to the fore a number of theological themes, particularly Christ's resurrection as an “ecclesiogenetic” event and baptism as participation in the paschal mystery. 54 As such, these Vespers with procession to the baptistry recapitulate the events commemorated in the Triduum and emphasize believers’ sacramental participation in Christ's saving mystery, especially if neophytes participate, in a particularly intense fashion over the three days. Sumani notes that many authors have recommended introducing baptismal Vespers but observes that practical difficulties, such as an overemphasis upon eucharistic celebrations, make elaborate Easter Sunday Vespers unpopular in practice. One might wonder how baptismal Vespers differed from an ordinary celebration of Vespers. It involved on the one hand liturgical texts referring not only to Christ's resurrection but also to the sacramental participation of the faithful in it with stations at the altar, baptistry, and place of confirmation/chrismation. Baptismal Vespers, especially on Easter Sunday itself, could serve to add another element recalling the faithful's participation in Christ's paschal mystery as well as serving as a fitting conclusion to the three days.
The popularity of the customs maintained by indult (a license granted by the Pope authorizing an act that the common law of the Church does not sanction) to this day in Central Europe—focusing especially upon the Blessed Sacrament—with precedents also in medieval Western Europe, while not to be simply copied, may serve as encouragement to developing popular observance of the historical events over the three days, naturally not focusing upon the Blessed Sacrament.
55
Christopher Herbert's study on English Easter Sepulchres gives access to the variety of related pre-Reformation practices in England.
56
In 2008, the Ambrosian rite restored its double, mimetic celebration on Good Friday—the Lord's Passion earlier in the day with the burial in the evening—which it had dropped initially after the Second Vatican Council. Though a conversation this author had with a church sacristan from Milan suggests only the first celebration is in fact held in most parishes and the Via crucis is held in the evening rather than the celebration of the burial.
57
Not to be overlooked is the recent indication in the editio peculiaris of the Evangeliarium that the ambo should recall the Lord's tomb: In Missa cum populo celebranda lectiones semper ex ambone proclamandae sunt, loco excelso et stabili et expolito et decoro, dignitatem verbi illinc proclamati evocanti, iconismate Sancti Sepulcri et nudi tumuli illius, unde verbum vitae annuntiatur.
58
[In Mass celebrated with the people, the readings must always be proclaimed from the ambo, which is a raised and fixed place, refined and beautiful, evoking the dignity of the word proclaimed there, the image of the Holy Sepulchre and of that empty tomb, from where the Word of Life is proclaimed.]
In light of the aforementioned circular letter, Paschalis sollemnitatis, approving provision of an image of the Lord in the tomb for the veneration of the faithful, the symbolic value of the ambo might be more greatly emphasized. 59
Walter Knowles, writing from a North American Episcopalian perspective, notes that what he calls the mimetic, great pilgrimage-church Holy Week observances of fourth- and fifth-century Jerusalem, were intended as once-in-a-lifetime experiences for pilgrims. 60 The Roman liturgies of today are greatly influenced by those single-experience pilgrim liturgies and are consequently difficult to carry out well every year in parishes. Knowles suggests a pattern of liturgies likely at the time of Saint Augustine (†430) in North-African Hippo Regius, which focused much more on recalling one's baptism and growing in Christian maturity from participation in the resurrection of Christ. The post-conciliar Triduum liturgies remain somewhat mimetic by focusing on different moments towards the end of the Lord's life. The Mass of the Lord's Supper commemorates the institution of the Eucharist and even includes an optional foot-washing. The Good Friday afternoon rite includes a veneration of the instrument of the Lord's passion and death: the cross. Easter Sunday Vespers, even with a baptismal procession, is more anamnetic than mimetic, recalling and interpreting the events of Easter Sunday night, morning, and evening, their redemptive significance and our sharing in the work wrought by Christ. Still, the texts, especially the antiphons of the Hours, also recall the whole paschal mystery and the faithful's participation in it.
Conclusion
The distinction made between (1) the earlier part of the Easter Vigil, (2) the latter part of the Vigil, Lauds, and the morning Missa in die, and (3) Vespers and evening Mass, seems clear and deliberate and entirely consonant with the expressed desire to make of the Sacred Triduum a Paschal Triduum in which Easter Sunday would constitute one third of three days. Recall, however, Patrick Regan's observation regarding the Paschal Vigil that each celebration of Easter Sunday does indeed commemorate the whole paschal mystery and its manifestation to the disciples. Since the reforms of Pope Pius XII, the Paschal Vigil occurs during the night, as it had in the earlier periods of church history. The choice of night-time celebration is due to the church's acceptance that the Lord rose from the dead during the night. The manner of celebration, as Regan notes, seeks to interpret and share in the mystery, but in a fashion peculiar to the time of day or night. Commemorating explicitly the finding of the empty tomb and the various morning apparitions is kept for the later part of the Vigil in the proclamation of the Gospel passage and, then, for the morning celebrations of Lauds and Mass. The journey to Emmaus and the apparition in the upper room in Jerusalem are also commemorated explicitly, but later on Easter Sunday. The liturgical celebrations of Lauds, Day Mass, Evening Mass, and Vespers celebrate the whole mystery, but contain distinctions, which reflect the pattern of events: resurrection, finding the tomb empty, apparitions in the garden, the journey to Emmaus, the meal in Emmaus, the first apparition to the group of disciples in Jerusalem on Sunday evening.
Today's expressed desire to mark the Hours at the end of Holy Week in a somewhat particular and even dramatic fashion is surely a sign that a reconsideration of the 1960s and 1970s reform of the Roman rite's Great Week would likely receive a positive reception in local churches. There is nothing to prevent having the Gallican Kyrie puerorum, as they are called in Hungary, maintained to this day by religious Orders like the Dominicans and Carmelites, or the Lamentations of Jeremiah, 61 or the quenching of candles upon a “hearse,” re-introduced in a fashion suitable to the post-conciliar Roman rite Paschal Triduum. The omission of the Office of Matins (or Readings) with its Te Deum laudamus from the liturgy of Easter Sunday by those who attend the Vigil, indicated by the rubrics since 1952, 62 is unfortunate with respect to the canticle. The paschal significance of this ancient hymn is well documented. 63
Regardless of future development, local or brought about by the Apostolic See, the liturgy of the Paschal Triduum has already been changed significantly not only to celebrate the whole mystery at each particular celebration, but also to commemorate over three days the distinct moments of the Lord's Passion, death, resurrection, finding the empty tomb, and appearances to the women first and, then, to the other disciples. Greater awareness and understanding of the articulated liturgy of Easter Sunday omnis divisa in partes tres 64 —night, morning, and evening: Vigil, Lauds–Missa in die, and Vespers—must be an unavoidable starting point for considering celebrations in practice and, secondarily, future changes to the liturgical books.
