Our thanks to Christopher Harrison for sending us this article.
If anyone was awake at 7.00 am on Easter morning and wondered why the church bell was ringing, this was Parwich’s contribution to the ancient tradition of celebrating Easter with a dawn service (well, just after dawn). There is something very primal about lighting the Paschal candle from a fire in the churchyard and following the lit candle into a dark church, while the acclamation ‘Christ, our Light’ is intoned three times.
The snow and wind did not make matters particularly straightforward, however, and in fact the candle had to be lit in the church porch. But the fact that several people did make it to the service in spite of the weather – from as far afield as Brassington and Mappleton – was an indication of our determination not to let anything stand in the way of our celebration of the climax of the Christian year.
Jonathan Marshall’s plainsong rendering of the ‘exultet’ gave us a glimpse of the timelessness of this Easter ritual, and this lifted hearts and minds in their contemplation of the awesome mystery of Christ’s resurrection. After four scripture readings, interspersed with hymns, by candlelight, the lights were turned on at the moment of acclamation ‘Christ is risen, He is risen indeed, Alleluia!’ The first communion of Easter followed shortly afterwards.
All were then treated to breakfast – even including fresh coffee from Jonathan’s state of the art machine. It almost felt disappointing that the snow had begun to melt by the time we went home after the service!
Photo by Peter Trewhitt
