Easter came on the same day as Qing Ming this year.

There is a convergence between these two traditions from opposite ends of Eurasia. Qing Ming honors the graves of our many departed ancestors. Easter celebrates a triumph over the grave.

The Catholic Church is ancient, but I am new to the church, and I am unbaptised. I attended Easter Vigil for the first time this past Holy Saturday, because some acquaintances of mine from RCIA were getting baptised, and I simply wanted to see what it was like.

It was unexpectedly moving. I had entered late, mixing up the timing, and missed the Exultet, the lighting of the Paschal candles, and the first readings. I did not expect to see a dark Church with all the lights switched off, and a small charcoal fire at the entrance. As I walked in, I wondered if the dark quiet Church was empty for a moment, until I saw the faithful packed to the gills as I drew closer to the church hall. The ushers found me a seat somewhere in the overflow pews outside the main hall, in a row with a few other parishioners who were alone, and seemed either new to the Church like me or like they hadn’t been back in a while. The night was warm without air conditioning, but perhaps less humid than it could be, and we all seemed at peace in the dark, listening to the readings and singing the Psalms together.

When the lights came on with the singing of the Gloria and the ringing of the bells, it was as if a weight had lifted from the somberness. The church returning to light, the joyful singing, the bells ringing, the purposeful rearrangement of the altar by the altar boys, I think it had the intended effect of sparking joy.

Soon, it was time for the baptism, with the Litany of saints being sung and the baptismal font being blessed with the Paschal candle. It was my first time singing the Litany, and the weight of tradition of the church was moving. The rites looked strangely familiar to me as someone who had grown up within the Eastern religions – the sacred fire, the candles, even the smell of incense. I did not expect a reminder of Qing Ming.

As the Litany of Saints was sung, I realized that the Catholic Church too gathers its holy men and women across the centuries, calling them by name and asking for their prayers as they sit in heaven. The Litany would have been much shorter at the beginning of the Church if it was sung then – maybe Mary, Joseph, the apostles, and the angels would have been most of the list. It struck me that memory accumulates in the Church much as ancestors accumulate in our Chinese tradition. A faith looking forward to eternity still carries the weight and memory of all those who came before.

I chose to leave earlier, before Holy Communion.

The Catholic Church has strict rules, many of them. One of them is that the unbaptized and those not in a state of grace may not receive Communion. There are others as well, governing the sacraments, the definitions of family and the limits of belief. In China, the Chinese rites controversy was a dispute among Catholic missionaries and the Vatican about whether Chinese ritual veneration of ancestors, much like what we do during Qing Ming nowadays, was compatible with the church.

And the weight of these rules – both historical and personal – means that I may not be able to join the church. I believe anyway – I’ve had prayers answered regarding the health of my family – protection through a difficult period for my wife, and a miraculous recovery for my son. Maybe they would have been healed anyway, but not everything in our world is rational. Deep in my heart I had seen these signs and promised faith to the Christian God, even if I had not taken the final step of initiation.

And so I stay in the liminal space on the threshold of the church, reflecting on tradition and trying to walk a bridge towards faith, meditating on the two – A tradition looking back in respect for our forebears, a faith looking forward to the hope of eternal life.

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