“This is the night, that with a pillar of fire banished the darkness of sin. This is the night that sets Christian believers apart from worldly vices and from the gloom of sin, leading them to grace and joining them to his holy ones. This is the night, when Christ broke the prison-bars of death and rose victorious from the underworld. Our birth would have been no gain, had we not been redeemed. O truly blessed night, worthy alone to know the time and hour when Christ rose from the underworld. This is the night of which it is written: The night shall be as bright as day, dazzling is the night for me, and full of gladness. The sanctifying power of this night dispels wickedness, washes faults away, restores innocence to the fallen, and joy to mourners, drives out hatred, fosters concord, and brings down the mighty. On this, your night of grace, O holy Father, accept this candle, a solemn offering, the work of bees and of your servants’ hands, an evening sacrifice of praise, this gift from your most holy Church. Receive it as a pleasing fragrance, and let it mingle with the lights of heaven. May this flame be found still burning by the Morning Star: The One Morning Star who never sets, Christ your Son, who, coming back from death’s domain, has shed his peaceful light on humanity, and lives and reigns for ever and ever. Amen.”
The preceding quote was from the Easter Proclamation, or the Exsultet. The Exsultet dates to the Easter celebrations of the ninth century. The world was exiting the circumscriptions of the Dark Ages and moving, with a cautious hesitancy, to the Middle Ages. The Exsultet provided the light to illumine the passageway between the eras.
The Exsultet celebrates the solitary light of Christ the Redeemer. In ancient times the flame of the paschal candle was the only illumination in a darkened Church. Now the paschal candle mingles with the necessary artificial lights of the modern world, but it does not lose its significance. It remains the solitary light of hope.
It is this solitary light that is processed into the Church by a deacon who then leads the congregation in the Easter Proclamation. It is the solitary light that illuminates the light of the congregational candles that light our way through the Easter procession. It is the solitary light that is received by the newly baptized to be kept burning brightly as they strive to fulfill their responsibilities as a child of God. It is the solitary light that stands as a sentinel beside the remains of our loved ones on the day of their funeral liturgy to be used as the passage to wed the things of earth with the those of heaven.
It is the solitary light that unites our entire liturgical calendar as one. “Yet in thy dark streets shineth the everlasting light.” “Disperse the gloomy clouds of night, and death’s dark shadows put to flight.” “O most blessed Light divine, shine within these hearts of yours, and our inmost being fill.” “Make us your own, your holy people, light for the world to see.”
The following is the prayer after the seventh reading of the Easter Vigil.
“O God of changing power and eternal light, look with favor on the wondrous mystery of the whole Church and serenely accomplish the work of human salvation, which you planned from all eternity; may the whole world know and see that what was cast down is raised up, what had become old is new, and all things are restored to integrity through Christ, just as by him they came into being. Who lives and reigns for ever and ever. Amen.”
Easter blessings in abundance!