Vigil

Vigil, originally the watch kept, with public prayer, on the night before a feast, is traceable in the very earliest centuries, and is one of the usages against which Vigilantius inveighs, and which Jerome vindicates in his reply, though he admits the abuses that often accompanied it, and which ultimately brought about its suppression. The old observance survives in the Roman Church now only in the Matins and Lauds and the midnight mass before Christmas, and the term is applied to the day and night preceding a feast, on certain of which fasting is obligatory (in England, on the vigils of Whitsunday, the Assumption, SS. Peter and Paul, All Saints, and Christmas). Vigils are marked in the Book of Common Prayer; no special services are appointed for them, but the collect of the next day is used at evensong. The 'watch-night' service at New Year (q.v.) is analogous.