Lucernare

LUCERNARE. - The hour of evening prayer, when lights were lit in the home. It is not to be confused with Vespers, although the times of the two prayers are so close that the name and meaning 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 light more solemnly and greeting it ritually 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 brightly illuminated (Acts 20:8). For Christians this time of lighting the light coincided with the Sunday vigil, and thus the rite symbolized the Resurrection of Christ and his parousia.

The Greeks and Romans too greeted the lamp as "good," "lovely," "pleasant"; the lamp-bearer uttered a wish, and to the lighting of the light were added sacrifices and prayers. In the homes of Christians and in the places of their gatherings, this became a religious rite. St. Basil (PG 32, 205) cites the ancient hymn Lumen hilare, perhaps dating from the times of the martyrs, which was recited on this occasion and which also occurs today in the Greek esperinus and in the liturgy of the Presanctified. His brother, St. Gregory of Nyssa, relates that, at the lighting of the light, 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 gatherings: Psalm 140 is recited, already cited by St. John as a daily prayer, followed by other prayers of thanksgiving. The Nunc dimittis was also recited as a canticle. Similar prayers were in use at the ceremony of the agape, according to the Ethiopic recension of the Apostolic Tradition of Hippolytus. Well known is the description of the lucernare at Jerusalem given by Egeria in the Peregrinatio. This shows 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 to pray "recedente sole ac die." St. Jerome recommended (Ep., 107, 9, 3) to the Roman woman Laeta that she have her daughter "accensa lucerna reddere sacrificium vespertinum." Of St. Paulinus it is related that in his final agony, at the time of the lucernare, he sang 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 preserves even today, as does 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 on the model 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 Antiphonary of Bangor (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 to Easter) with a special collect.

It should be noted that St. Benedict does not mention it at all in his Rule because it was not in use at Rome, and he ordered Vespers to be sung in daylight, thus excluding lights and lamps. Throughout the Mediterranean in the time of St. Jerome, St. Augustine, Ennodius of Pavia (d. 521) and also 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). In the Lateran on Holy Thursday and the following days there was a procession cum supplici silentio; with a spark struck from stone a candle was lit, fixed to the top of a reed, with which the seven lamps of the altar were then lit.

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 4 collects, which are a reminder of the primitive lucernal Eucharist; b) the procession of the Lumen Christi, another remnant of the lucernare; c) the rite of the Exultet, the classic Laua cerei, already attributed to St. Augustine.

Pietro Siffrin