HOLY SATURDAY
Holy Saturday was considered a haliturgical day on which the Eucharist was not celebrated. While this, in early times, was not an abnormal situation, since the Eucharist was not habitually celebrated at the time, the desire to remain fasting until Christ’s resurrection nevertheless demanded that the Eucharist not be eaten before the celebration of Easter. This did not mean that on Holy Saturday there was no other celebration. We know that the last solemn exorcism by the bishop took place in the morning. We already have proof of this in Hippolytus, and we find everywhere the rite of the morning of Holy Saturday linked to the redditio smboli[1]
If, however, at the time of Innocent III († 1216) the celebration of the Easter Vigil was fixed in detail, including the twelve readings, it should be noted that it had already been in sharp decline for some time. In the 7th century, in fact, such a Vigil began on the Saturday afternoon, although, one waited until nightfall to celebrate the Eucharist. Beginning the readings around two o’clock in the afternoon meant blessing the fire and singing the Exultet more or less in the middle of the day, with all the negative consequences that entailed. As one can see, the sense of the realities of liturgical celebration had already been completely blurred by that time, when one was not surprised to sing the mirabilia of the blessed night in broad daylight. Such a celebration, without a spirit, could only discourage the faithful from taking part: in short, it was a celebration reserved for the clergy. When Pius V forbade the celebration of the Eucharist in the afternoon, everything was consummated: the Vigil was celebrated….on Saturday morning.
A century later, Urban VIII gave the final blow to the popularity of the Vigil when he suppressed it as a feast of obligation. All this allows us to measure the extent of the reform carried out by the Church in this regard, and helps us understand the heavy legacy that still weighs on the mentality of many people in our time . [2]
Fr. Giorgio Bontempi C.M.
[1] HIPPOLYTE DE ROME, La Tradition Apostolique, 20: ed. cit. 43.
[2] Triduum Sacrum, op. cit, 105.
