The year before last I was disappointed by Vigil lasting less than two hours :eek: ; only maybe three readings were read before the Gospel. Last year, however, there was a young woman receiving baptism/communion/confirmation so the pastor pulled out all the stops. It was at least two and a half hours and had every bell and whistle thrown in. Whee!
the parish i grew up in had great and holy saturday’s service at 4pm. (that did coincide with jerusalem) i was very happy with 4pm because i got some sleep in after spending overnight in church reading until the 9am people arrived.
then the bishop told the priest he had to have it at 9:30am. i was very bummed by that. and yes, the service is very long, very, very, long; but interesting with all the readings and cloth changing, and cross turnings. sometimes there are fig newtons after.
The (Catholic) Easter Vigil that I normally attend starts at 9.30pm. The Vigil ceremony (lighting of the fire, blessing and lighting of the Paschal candle, chanting of the prophecies, blessing of the font, singing of the litanies etc) takes about two and a quarter hours and finishes just before midnight. This gives everyone a few minutes’ break before we begin the midnight Easter mass. The mass itself ends at about 1.30am. Then we all go home, get some sleep and come back for the Easter morning mass at 11.30am.