There I was again the only blonde blue eyed foreigner in a sea of Korean Benedictine sisters who were dawning their white habits for the first time since Lent’s beginnings. It was Easter vigil and my first ever. I had a heart full of joy because this was the greatest event of the year for the sisters and I was getting to be a part of it. I thought to myself, “Here I am sharing Easter with some dear people I’ve come to call friends.”
Sister Anna Marie tugged at my hand and motioned that I follow her to what for me felt like a privileged place among the sisters. Many of the other guests were further down the pathway closer to the entrance of the sanctuary and they stood in a bunch. Yet Sr. Anna Marie seemed determined for me to join her and the other sisters to watch the proceedings. She found a place where we could see well together. I stood with her humbled by the ways she shows that our relationship is moving towards friendship and often she does it without language. I cherish that she would call me friend. That “title” isn’t given lightly here.
There was a fire ring on the ground and a table with a massive candle on it. The candle had to be at least 3 feet in length! For the 10 minutes before the start all of us stood in complete silence waiting. Silence. Darkness. Those were appropriate symbols for Holy Saturday. Those moments of silence, darkness and anticipation among friends were sweet. At exactly 10 p.m. the silence broke and we watched the commissioning of the new Christ candle. We shared the fire of the Christ candle as one by one the small candles we held received light. Just as the silence had been broken by the first words of the priest’s welcoming so too the darkness of the night broke as we held our brightly lit candles. The priest started the procession down the path, between all the people and into the sanctuary. We all followed in behind to begin the mass.
After we made the procession into the sanctuary the service lasted 2 and half hours—so well past midnight. We were lucky. Not long ago this Easter vigil lasted the whole night unto dawn. There was a lot of standing, sitting and singing. There were at least 7 passages of scripture read. There were prayers recited. There were movements by the priest to prepare for this special mass’s rituals. There was even a short homily where the priest had the sisters banging on their chairs, making funny shapes with their hands and yelling out hallelujah. The priest broke all sense of “reverence” and thankfully revealed the humanity in it all. There was joy! In this special mass we welcomed the risen Lord like so many people welcome the coming of a new year. It was a different kind of party but the joyful anticipation was definitely like that of New Years Eve.
The evening began with moments where I had to pinch myself to make sure I was really “where I was”. “I’m in South Korea, with Benedictine sisters celebrating the dawning of the resurrection.” I wouldn’t have wanted to be anywhere else. Yet, as the mass went on, and on and ON some of spectacular waned in my mind with intervals of fatigue. The fatigue was a mix of timing and concentration. It was mid-night so of course I was tired. The whole mass was acted out in Korean. It could have been Chinese or Arabic; I would have understood nearly the same amount—almost nothing. I was concentrating on each word half hoping God would have mercy and bestow on me the gift of tongues—at least the Korean tongue. Sitting through any Korean mass is a lesson in patience but this extended version proved to be a series of lessons.
Eventually I realized there would be no miraculous event tonight. I wasn’t going to suddenly understand Korean with the touch of the Holy Spirit. I found myself tuning out the spoken language all together. I had this sense that I was missing something by straining to “understand”. Why would I even try to understand the singing, the reading, and the preaching? It would be altogether different in English. I was working too hard and at what gain? Then something profound happened.
As soon as I turned off the “cognitive” switch of my brain and stopped straining to understand with my mind, I heard something else. There it was, the “emotive”. Despite not understanding the spoken language of the mass my heart got involved and understand more of what was happening than I realized it could. I asked myself, “How is it that I can engage without spoken language?”
Just then a sister walked up behind the towering Christ candle to take up fire so she could light six white candles on the alter. A new movement of the mass was on its way. Other sisters came down the isles of the sanctuary to light a few of our candles. Again we passed on the light to all who held candles. As everyone held a burning candle, the priest did some things I didn’t understand. He proceeded to wash his hands in these clay pots alongside the wall. What was happening? I had no idea. After drying off his hands a sister helped him pour some of the water in those clay jars into an small ornamented jar. He dipped a metal wand into the jar and he approached the people. The whole room without being told tilted their heads and shoulders forward in reverence and received the drops of water flung onto them. Then with even a tear coming to my eye I realized there was storytelling happening through symbol and movement. No one had to speak a word because during those moments it spoke to me loud and clear.
On this dawning of Easter we held the symbol of the light of Christ in our hands and with a few flung drops of water we took on a humble posture to remember our own dying and rising—our Baptism. My heart engaged this service—a service spoken in Korean--because of the symbolism and postures. Such things spoke to the language of my heart. I found my heart leading me to a space of contemplation. The story told led me to review my own journey of conversion. Isn’t that what Easter is all about!
The symbols of the night—the cross, the new Christ candle, the clay pots holding the baptismal water, the wand for sprinkling, the bread and wine, the fresh flowers, and the white habits all spoke to the meaning of the Easter mass. The movements of the people—the procession into the sanctuary, the bowing at times of great reverence, the crossing of “Father, Son and Holy Sprit” across the chest, the flinging and receiving of baptismal water and the kneeling in preparation for Eucharist all spoke to the story of death and resurrection. The story provoked in me a remembering of my own story. I couldn’t help but think of all the times I’ve sat through services in my own language and failed to engage with the story as much as this night. It is easy to take the symbolism and movements for granted when there is English.
Easter Vigil this year resurrected the power of symbol and posture for me in the telling of the Christian story. It began with a sister who invited me with a posture of friendship to follow her and stand with her in a privileged place. It continued with a turning off the sound of the spoken word. That “turning off” lead to an opening of mystery—connecting to the story by emotive and imaginative means. There is a reason the church has referred to the crux of the Christian story and the story we tell at Easter as the “paschal mystery”. If I wasn’t convinced before, I am now convinced that symbols and postures used in the telling of the Christian story can engage us in the paschal mystery in ways our words have not.
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