Matins begins physically in darkness and in this darkness we hear the morning Psalms which proclaim our helplessness without God. Without Him we remain in the darkness of fear, defeat and death. The psalms show that we thirst for God as if in a desert. This thirst leads us to Jesus Christ, the light who shatters the darkness and takes us from darkness to light which is true knowledge of God.

"You, O Lord, are my helper, my glory and the lifter of my head...Arise, O Lord, save me O my God...Salvation belongs to the Lord..."

(From Psalm 3)

"O God my God for You I keep vigil; my flesh faints for You as in a dry and weary land...My soul clings to you, Your right hand comforts me..." (From Psalm 63)

The theme of light appears after the opening Psalms when the priest proclaims, in a still darkened church in verses from Psalm 118 "God is the Lord and has revealed Himself to us (or has given us light)! Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord. The transition from a darkened to an illumined church takes place as God is the Lord and its verses are sung.

The entire Vigil service is a revelation of the love and mercy of God that endures forever through His Son Jesus Christ. Revelation is light and God reveals this to us through the light of His only-begotten Son. Jesus is the One who is blessed and comes in His name. He is the perfect revelation of God. This perfect revelation of God is love that we are called to become through the new life of the Pascal mystery we celebrate.

The priest now holding a candle stands in an illumined church and censes the Gospel Book enthroned on the altar. The light that leads us to newness of life is His Word contained in the Holy Gospel. Not only do we hear it and we venerate it, we love His word because they are the words of eternal life.

The priest then censes the entire church and the people in preparation for our hearing the word that we are called to hear and live in our daily lives. The Gospel lessons that are read at the Vigil are all taken from the Resurrection Gospels. They are a proclamation of the reality of the Pascal Mystery, the mystery of our faith that gives life worth again.

After the reading it is carried in procession to the center of the church while we sing the hymns of the resurrection, "Having beheld the Resurrection of Christ, let us worship the holy Lord Jesus Christ, the only sinless one. We venerate Your Cross, O Christ and your holy Resurrection we praise and glorify...Come all you faithful let us venerate Christ's holy Resurrection for behold through the Cross joy has come into all the world..." The hymn shows that we too have seen the glory of God in the Pascal Mystery we have heard in the Gospel.

Then after intercessory prayer in which we remember the saints who in Christ are present with us at Vigil, Matins continues the theme of light and triumph in hymns called the Canon while the Gospel is venerated by all the faithful.

Matins then closes with the theme of light praising God in the Psalms of Praise in which all creation that has been transformed and made good again in the Pascal Mystery, praises Him for all His mighty deeds.

The priest now proclaims; "Glory to Thee who has shown us the light" and we sing the ancient hymn of praise to the Trinity. "We praise Thee, we bless Thee, we worship Thee..." we sing to God Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, who loves and saves us.