Waiting for the Dawn

I first heard about St James’s Piccadilly in March 2020. Churches were closed; Holy week and Easter had moved online. It was a bit surreal, and a very quiet beginning of something that would become important to me.

The Easter vigil is one of the most prayerful, contemplative experiences I have ever lived and when I was asked to write about my experience, I wanted to find some solemn words reflecting a deep spiritual experience. Thinking back, I am not sure what I was really expecting when I first attended a vigil in 2022.  It was my first in-person Easter at St James’s and what I do remember clearly was the childlike joy at being able to ‘camp’ in a church… Images that come to my mind as I write these lines are those of people setting camp for the night after Compline on Holy Saturday. Sleeping arrangements are varied, from a blanket in the pews to inflatable mattresses that would probably allow for a good night’s sleep. I come with the basics, a sleeping bag and a floor mat, suitably uncomfortable to keep awake, occasionally… There is something very peaceful about that special night. There is of course stillness and an atmosphere of contemplation but this feeling of peace also comes from familiar noises (strangely): people snoring, moving around occasionally, and London’s Saturday nightlife outside.

Through the night, people take hourly turns to keep vigil in the side chapel by candlelight. The 2-3 am slot is the toughest (a couple of years ago, we were ‘helped’ by the clocks going forward) … There is comfort in knowing that there is always someone awake in the side chapel, that the thread of prayers is uninterrupted while the world is asleep. Eventually, around 5 am, light returns slowly and the night ‘camp’ is dismantled to welcome the outside world and the new day.

There is this very particular moment just before 6 am when the main doors to the church open, and people start arriving, to join the group that has been in church overnight. There is a sense of real expectation at this time, and the held silence is broken when one of the priests says, ‘Let us go out to greet the dawn’. And we do so. It is cold outside, birds are singing, I am tired and awake at the same time. I could describe in minutiae the Easter Dawn Eucharist service, but what comes to me are specific images, sounds and impressions:  the Easter fire in the garden, the Paschal Candle _the light of Christ_ being lit, the beauty of the Exsultet sung by the font, the joyful (and very wet) renewal of baptismal vows… The Eucharist bread we share in the garden had been made the previous evening during Vespers. There is something I cannot quite articulate about communion bread being made by many hands, ingredient by ingredient. I haven’t yet added my own ingredient to this bread nor given a stir to the dough as I am too shy to step in the middle of the breadmaking circle. I shall do so one day…

At the end of the service, we go out onto Piccadilly and sing. Michael plays the accordion, and we give away chocolate Easter eggs to anyone and everyone we meet on our way: people sleeping in doorways, tourists on an early walk, night-shift workers heading home, others starting their day… Though Easter eggs are everywhere at this time of the year, people always seem slightly puzzled at being handed one so early in the morning… and I always feel a tad awkward about offering them to passerby.

It is very difficult to put in words, other than plainly descriptive, my experience of the Easter Vigil and Dawn Eucharist. If I was trying to explain what the Vigil is like to someone who had never been to one, I think I would say: it is St James’s, but not as you’ve ever known it. Outside, the noise of Piccadilly is still there; inside, the church keeps its quiet, lit only by the tealight candles in the side chapel. There is wonder and beauty in that familiar place made strange by the night. I doubt this text has brought anyone closer to understanding what the Easter Vigil holds. I hope it makes someone want to experience it by themselves.