Vigils Reading

FROM THE WEST TO THE EAST

From the catechesis of St Cyril of Jerusalem

◊◊◊

I long ago desired, true born and dearly beloved children of the Church, to

speak to you concerning these spiritual and heavenly mysteries in which you

came to participate. Knowing well that seeing is far more persuasive than

hearing, I waited until now with the hope of finding you more open to the

influence of my words from the actions you experience. Thus I might take and

lead you to the brighter and more fragrant meadow of this present paradise,

especially as you have been made fit to receive the more sacred mysteries and

have been counted worthy of divine and life-giving baptism.

On that evening of your baptism you entered into the outer hall of the

Baptistry, and there facing toward the west you heard the command to stretch

forth your hand, and as in the presence of Satan, you renounced him. This figure

is found in ancient history. For when Pharaoh, that most cruel and ruthless

tyrant, oppressed the free and royal people of the Hebrews, God sent Moses to

bring them out of the evil grip of the Egyptians. Then the doorposts were

anointed with the blood of the lamb that the destroyer might flee from the

houses which had the sign of the blood. And the Hebrew people were

marvelously delivered. The enemy, however, after their rescue, pursued them,

and saw the sea wondrously parted for them. Nevertheless he went on,

following in their footsteps and was all at once overwhelmed and engulfed in the

Red Sea.

Now turn from the ancient to the recent, from the figure to the reality.

There, we have Moses sent from God to Egypt; here, Christ sent by his Father

into the world. There, that Moses might lead forth an oppressed people out of

Egypt; here, that Christ might rescue mankind who is overwhelmed with sins.

There, the blood of a lamb was the spell against the destroyer; here, the blood of

the unblemished Lamb Jesus Christ is made the charm to scare evil spirits.

There, the tyrant pursued even to the sea that ancient people; and in like

manner this daring and shameless spirit, the author of evil, followed you, even

to the very streams of salvation. The tyrant of old was drowned in the sea; and

this present one disappears in the saving water.

What then did each of you standing up say? ‘I renounce Satan’, meaning ‘I

fear your power no longer, for Christ has overthrown it, having partaken with

me of flesh and blood, that through these he might by death destroy death that I

might not for ever be subject to bondage. I renounce you, you crafty and most

subtle serpent. I renounce you, plotter as you are, who under the guise of

friendship brought about disobedience and the apostasy of our first parents. I

renounce you, Satan, the source of all wickedness.’

When you renounced Satan, utterly breaking all covenants with him, that

ancient connection with hell, there is opened to you the paradise of God, which

he planted toward the east, where for his transgression our first father was

exiled. Symbolic of this was your turning from the west to the east, the place of

light. Then you were told to say: I believe in the Father, and in the Son, and in

the Holy Spirit, and in one baptism of repentance.