Expecting More on Saturday

Following up on my post, Expecting more on Sunday, I want to discuss how a parish can expand its offerings for Saturday and enlarge parishioner’s expectations of how much they should worship.

This topic really has two components, services during the day on Saturday and services on the Eve of Sunday. The first topic can be set aside as either being a sub topic of an article on a parishes’ Daily Office schedule or as part of an article on Marian Devotion. It is the second topic, the Vigil of Sunday that I want to address.

Saturday evening is a time when preparations both practical and spiritual should be made for the following day. First Vespers of Sunday should begin the Saturday prep time at 6 p.m. this should be followed by two hours of preparation for Sunday. The choir can rehearse the hymns, psalms, and canticles. The altar servers can practice their roles at the Sunday services. The alter guild can put new cloths on the altar and prepare the cruets and alter bread for mass the next morning. The priest can put the finishing touches on his sermon for the next day. At the end of this period, all those present meet for Compline.

On most Saturday nights this will be the end of the preparation, but on the Eve of particularly important Sundays: Septugesima Sunday, Easter Sunday, and Whitsunday, a late night service and a vigil kept through the night before the high altar, are called for.

As to the service, call it Matins or Vigils or Nocturnes or Nine Lessons and Carols, but whatever you call it have nine songs (Psalms, Canticles, or Hymns) and nine scripture readings, pray and then end the service. The Vigil service for Easter is right there in the BCP.

As to the vigil before the Altar, put out a signup sheet two or three weeks before the Saturday in Question and have people sign up for one or two hour stretches. Put a kneeler in front of the altar, put a bible, and prayer books on the kneeler. It is done.

Before closing this post, I cannot help but note that the other thing which traditionally has been begun on Saturday. That is the Eucharistic Fast, the practice of not eating beginning at the end of the night on Saturday and continuing the fast until the Eucharist on Sunday Morning. I mentioned in my post on Sunday’s that to serve those who chose to keep the fast, that an early Sunday Eucharist is a good idea. That we should all endeavor to engage in this pious practice is obvious, but in my experience it is observed mostly in the breach. Changing that is another way we should expect more of ourselves and our fellow parishioners.