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Seen and Unseen pp 158–193Cite as

Palgrave Macmillan

Dark into Light: A Sociological Navigation

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Abstract

As a ritual expression of the passage of light into the dark, the vigil mass of Holy Saturday is difficult to equal. In the best of Catholic cathedrals, a fire is lit outside. It is blessed by the bishop with the words ‘make this fire+holy, and inflame us with new hope’. Marking the Alpha and Omega, five studs are screwed into the Pascal Candle. It is lit from the new fire. The bishop then says aloud ‘may the light of Christ, rising in glory, dispel the darkness of our hearts and minds’. Then the deacon carries the lit Pascal Candle into the darkened cathedral followed by the bishop, the priests, the servers, the choir and the congregation stretching back in long procession. As it proceeds into the darkened cathedral, the small light of the Candle casts shadows thus conveying a spectral property, a sense of a flickering light being brought into a tomb to find something. What is sought is the light of Christ, but that light does not exist for itself but only as something to be passed on and this is symbolised at the second stop made in the procession, when six boys, clad in white albs, as if angels, light their tapers from the Candle and take these back to those behind. Their little lights bob back into the darkened procession, and gradually as each lights the candles of the congregation, a sense of illumination spreads.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. University of Bristol, UK

    Kieran Flanagan (Reader in Sociology)

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© 2004 Kieran Flanagan

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Flanagan, K. (2004). Dark into Light: A Sociological Navigation. In: Seen and Unseen. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230502383_7

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