Keeping Vigil

I do love the Vigil. It is the one night of the year absolutely no one knows what is going on and what they are supposed to do, but somehow, some way, with the intervention of the Holy Spirit, it always comes together.

With perhaps the sole exception of the fire.

I "helped" (by watching and lighting the fire starters at the right time) put the fire together by pointing out we needed something to put the fire out with -- a bucket of rocks was provided for me by the pastor, who called the dirt/rock mixture "sand" -- and by helping to move the holy hibachi into place. One of our servers seems to be a bit of a pyromaniac in the making and kept scavenging around in the bushes, jumping out and frightening arriving parishioners in his white alb. Sort of a KKK thing going on. We had the fire going 25 minutes before V-time, and naturally, like fire does, it went out just as the presider arrived. He said, "Why isn't the fire going?" We had been so proud of it, but the seminarian and his little cubes saved the day once more and we got it relit in seconds from the embers. As we were standing there I noticed the scavenging server had broken his taper - so much for lighting everybody else's from the holy fire. When he passed his taper to the presider, the presider must have tried for about 2 minutes straight to get it to light. Wind kept blowing it out. I do love the Vigil. No matter how perfectly planned, it never goes according to plan.

A parishioner and I stood waiting for the fire to go out. Of course, it didn't. 20 minutes later I decided we should dump the rocks on it, and that seemed to work. Either that, or it would rekindle itself while unattended and we'll have our very own burning bush at the parish.

Now I'm just trying to figure out how to get the smell of smoke out of my hair before tomorrow. I do love the Vigil.