LUCERNARE. — The hour of evening prayer, when the light was kindled in the houses. It is not to be confused with vespers, although the times of the two prayers are so close that their names and meanings are sometimes confused: Hora lucernalis (Cassian), Lucernarium (Caesarius, Egeria), Eucharistia lucernalis (Basil), Gratia vespertina (Gregory of Tours).
Among the Jews there was a custom on Saturday evening of lighting the lamp with greater solemnity and ritually saluting it as a symbol of the divine light. This well explains the circumstance that at Troas, where St. Paul presided over the nocturnal “breaking of bread,” the upper room was brilliantly illuminated (Act. 20:8). For Christians, this time of lighting the lamp coincided with the Sunday vigil, and thus the rite symbolized the Resurrection of Christ and his parousia.
The Greeks and Romans likewise greeted the light as “good,” “lovable,” and “pleasant”; the light-bearer pronounced a good wish, and sacrifices and prayers were added when the light was kindled. In the homes of Christians and at the places of their meetings, this became a religious rite. St. Basil (PG 32, 205) cites the ancient hymn Lumen hilare, perhaps originating in the age of the martyrs, which was recited on this occasion and which is still found today in the Greek esperinos and in the liturgy of the Presanctified. His brother, St. Gregory of Nyssa, relates that, when the light was kindled, his dying sister Macrina recited for the last time the customary lucernal thanksgiving (PG 46, 985). The Apostolic Constitutions (II, 59, 2; VIII, 35–37) prescribe this rite for liturgical assemblies: Psalm 140, already cited by St. John as a daily prayer, is recited, followed by other prayers of thanksgiving. The Nunc dimittis was also recited as a lucernal canticle. Similar prayers were used at the agape ceremony, according to the Ethiopian recension of Hippolytus’s Apostolic Tradition. Notable is Egeria’s description of the lucernare at Jerusalem in the Peregrinatio. This demonstrates that in the East it was practiced almost universally. There is much evidence for its use in the West. Cyprian (De dom. orat., 35) admonished the faithful to pray “recedente sole ac die.” St. Jerome recommended (Ep., 107, 9, 3) to the Roman Leta that she should have her daughter “accensa lucerna reddere sacrificium vespertinum.” It is related of St. Paulinus that, during his final agony at the time of the lucernare, he sang in a lenta voce: “Paravi lucernam Christo meo” (Ps. 131:17; Uranius, De morte Paulini, 4: PL 53, 862). In the Milanese Office the lucernare precedes vespers. In Spain, Egeria observes, the lucernare was used as at Jerusalem. Prudentius composed the lucernal hymn Inventor rutili, which was sung in the Middle Ages on Holy Saturday after the blessing of the fire. The Mozarabic rite still preserves, like Milan, the memory of this lucernare: before vespers the deacon sings, “In nomine Domini nostri Iesu Christi, lumen cum pace,” and the people respond, Deo gratias (similar to our Lumen Christi of Holy Saturday). In Gaul, the monastic Rules of St. Caesarius and St. Aurelian (PL 68, 395) attest the use of the lucernare, following the example of the Rule of Lérins; the lucernare (with psalms and antiphons) is distinguished from vespers. The Regula magistri (PL 88, 1004) alludes to the lucernare at least by name, although it speaks of vespers. According to the Bangor Antiphonary (PL 72, 588), the lucernare was also in use in Ireland; noteworthy is the blessing of the candle with the hymn Ignis creator (without any allusion whatsoever to Easter), together with a special collect.
It should be noted that St. Benedict makes no mention of it at all in his Rule because it was not in use at Rome, and he ordered vespers to be sung in daylight, thereby excluding lights and lamps. Throughout the Mediterranean in the time of St. Jerome, St. Augustine, Ennodius of Pavia (d. 521), and even St. Gregory the Great (in a letter of 601 to the archbishop of Ravenna), on Holy Saturday the lucernare of the Laua cerei was in use, not in the City, but only in suburbanis civitatibus (Ord. Rom., 1: PL 78, 960). At the Lateran, on Holy Thursday and the following days, there was a procession cum supplici silentio; with a spark struck from stone, a candle fixed to the top of a reed was lit, and with it the seven lamps of the altar were then kindled.
Today, on Holy Saturday, the Roman-Latin rite brings together and fuses the three rites and prayers that were originally distinct: a) the blessing of the fire with the four collects, which recall the primitive lucernal Eucharist; b) the procession of the Lumen Christi, another remnant of the lucernare; c) the rite of the Exultet, the classical Laua cerei, formerly attributed to St. Augustine.