Saturday Night- Vespers with the Divine Liturgy of St. Basil

"Today Hades sighs and cried out: 'I should never have received the One Who was born of Mary; for He came against me and destroyed my power and crushed my gates of bronze. Being God, He raised the souls which I once held." Glory to your cross and resurrection, O Lord!"

This is just one of the stichera which we sing on Holy Saturday evening. A stichera is basically a way of singing what we believe.

Like our Roman Catholic bretheren, we also baptize catechumens on Holy Saturday. This year, we baptized a young girl. It was so precious because she was old enough to recite her own Baptism vows. Before the actual baptism, the priests asks her if she renounces Satan and if she has committed herself to Christ. When she answers "Yes, I do renounce him!" and "Yes, I HAVE committed myself to Christ!" it was just so meaningful and heartfelt.

During the Vespers we have two very long Old Testament readings. My favorite is the story from the book of Daniel (Daniel 3:1-51) about the three youths who were thrown into the firery furnace: Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego. The three refused to worship the golden statue which King Nebechadnezzar (say THAT five times fast) set up. Although they were cast into the white hot furnance they were not burned! Instead, the angel of the Lord came into the furnace and made the inside "as though a dew-laden breeze were blowing through it" and the three of them sang praises to God.

During the Liturgy of St. Basil we sing "All you who have been baptized into Christ, have put on Christ! Alleluia!" instead of the Trisagion or Thrice Holy Hymn. This echos the epistle reading from Romans 6:3-11. St. Paul writes that "A man who is dead has been freed from sin. If we have died with Christ, we believe that we are also to live with him. We know that Christ, once raised from the dead, will never die again; death has no more power over him. His death was death to sin, once for all; his life is life for God. In the same way, you must consider youselves dead to sin but alive for God in Christ Jesus."

Finally, we read the account of the Resurrection according to St. Matthew. Christ has risen from the dead. We can sing this from the rooftops, right? Not exactly. During this liturgy we don't take on the role of a particular person. No one knows that Christ is Risen yet because we haven't found out about it yet. Can you imagine witnessing such an event? We would probably we blinded by the glory and magnificence of it all! Christ is risen but the story isn't over yet. Many people who attend Vespers and Liturgy on Saturday night come back on Sunday morning to hear the rest of the story.

Yum-O! Since technically, Christ has risen, we can bless the Easter baskets. I wish the internet had a scratch and sniff screen because the smell in our vestibule was A-Mazing. Ham, sausage (sorry if your a vegetarian but you don't know what you are missing), cheese, butter, sweets mingled with the sweet smelling incense and filled the air.

On the way home my sister and I are starving. We both decided that sleep was more important than eating dinner so we decided to stop off at Steak'n'Shake. I had given up meat for lent and my sister had been following the fast for percription for Good Friday (no meat or dairy) and Holy Saturday (no meat) so we were ready for meat. My sister isn't a huge burger eater but we both ordered burgers and dug in. Let me tell you my friends, a greasy burger never tasted so good ;)

When we go home I can hardly sleep because I am so filled with excitement and anticipation for Pascha!