'Pascha' by Jacob Clark

Receiving the Light of the Risen Christ at the Vigil of Pascha 2025

Editor's note: The following piece was written by Jacob Clark, aged 14, the son of Pastor Doug Clark who with his community of St Hilda, Halifax, west Yorkshire is being prepared for reception into the Orthodox Church at he beginning of September. Jacob was personally present at the Paschal Vigil and wrote this piece for his family. I have his permission to reprint it here.

Pascha

The room was large, large enough to hold the hundred or so silent people standing there, watching, waiting. Outside was shadowy and still since it was nearing midnight, and yet these people still keep their nights vigil of Pascha, the commemoration of Christ's passion. The walls were covered with the icons of Christ and the saints, the very saints who also held this very commemoration along the line of history. The room was dark, the ceiling shrouded in shadow, just as Christ’s tomb would have been. But this room was getting lighter as more and more candles were lit.

A line of people in the middle of the room held unlit candles but they were flanked by those gone before them, holding their flickering candles in their hands. The line led to the Sovereign in front  of the Iconostasis where there was a chair; and sat on the chair was a venerable man, the priest. He sat still and straight, aware of the deep meaning of everything that was going on around him. In the priest's hands was a candle holder with three candles, tall and brightly burning. They cast a trembling light on the priest's face, a transcendent light. As each person walked forward and lit their candle his gaze was ever on their face. Stood next to the priest was the deacon, tall and straight, holding a candle in one hand. Behind the chair were two other priests, one, like the deacon, stood still and watched the proceedings. The other priest, however, was singing, a deep, rich sound. He and the choir alternated, bouncing back and forth the truth of Christ.

The choir's voice was high and heavenly, in tune and harmonious. But the priest's lone Grecian accent pronouncing the familiar Greek words sent the words thrumming and rolling over the heads of all who were in the room. The sonorous voice was true and the words that filled the ears of all who heard. And as the priest sang, still with one hand on the back of the chair, he gazed into the space above the crowd, but unseeingly. His focus and contemplation was spiritual rather than material. Here was where immaterial and material were closest!

The attentive gaze on every face, the hunger and the thirst to see the beauty and truth of the occasion was almost palpable. With the incense filled air, the sonorous voice, the light of a hundred candles and the look of profound wonder and understanding on every face, how could this be unholy worship? The very room was surrounded by images of some of the holiest men and women to live on this earth. The air shivered with the power and truth about Christ that reverberated around the room as the choir and priest sang. The light was natural light, the smell was natural smell, both that God had created.

And yet people say it is not the true worship? How so when many of those very same people are in their homes in bed or watching TV. How so when in the morning  they will go to church and worship in a way that has only been created in the past couple of hundred years, compared to the way these people now are worshipping; the way that people who had known and spoken to Jesus had instituted? Those other people will go and sing songs barely citing scripture or the church fathers. But here, here is a congregation of people who have forgone nice foods for days before in order to fight their sinful, earthly passions, who  stand straight backed in church as midnight closes in, listening to Scripture-rich hymns, sung with the voice that God made, dripping with theology and meaning.

These people who had spent the hour before reading out a whole book of the Bible. These people who will wait yet more hours to receive the true body and blood of Christ, shouting his name and his praise. These people know, and show that they know, that what Jesus did for us on that night two thousand years ago was not something that can be celebrated with an hour of shallow songs, the comfort food in your belly and the sight of fluffy yellow chicks on the hat of that person sat in front of you, no; this is a rigorous affair, fasting and praying, eyes ever onwards. Knowing that Jesus really did die, he really did smash the gates of hades and release the captives, he really did trample down sin, death and the devil. And yet people still say, ‘It's not true worship’.

I now walk up the aisle to the priest with my own unlit candle in my hands and the light of a hundred candles surrounding me. As the song rushes over me, the Greek priest’s voice like the sun, strong and powerful but taking it in turn with the choir which is like the moon reflecting the sun's light in its own way. As the incense fills my nose and my lungs. As I walk up to the priest with the candles, seeing in his eyes the wisdom gained only by living a life walking close to the Lord, and knowing in my heart ‘I am a sinner.’ As the stern but kindly, almost kingly, faces of the priests and deacon look down on me. As I recognise that these are much holier men than I am or may ever be.

As I light my candle from the flame of the candle that the priest holds and as I turn and join the mass of other candle bearers, all looking at and worshipping the same God, I can't help but think how right it feels; how even my hunger and bodily discomfort in this moment makes sense and propels me forward. This, this is true spirituality. And the knowledge of being together, being part of something much bigger and better than we will ever know. It is comforting. And as the last people are lighting their candles, as the hymn still rolls over our heads, as we all gaze onwards towards the light of the dawn, it is good.

Jacob Clark