For many clergy, the ingredients for lighting a successful New Fire at the Easter Vigil are closely guarded secrets. Here, for the first time ever, The Episcopal New Yorker has exposed these sacred mysteries. Of course, there is no consensus on the perfect fire. We are Anglicans after all.

The Rev. David Lee Carlson confidently proclaims: “The best recipe for the fire is epsom salts and rubbing alcohol. When lit, it burns clean, blue/white and briefly. Just right!” The Rev. Sarah Midzalkowski, now serving a parish in Virginia, does likewise. She says of her congregation, “it’s a group with a lot of science-minded-government folks and they like to use epsom salts and alcohol for their fire. This was new to me but it gives off a stunning blue flame that burns cold of all things!”

Of course ratios are an important part of the mix. The Rev. Thomas Margrave, rector of St. John’s, Cornwall, learned this lesson at his first Easter Vigil as the Deacon Vicar of a church in upstate New York. “About a third of the way through singing the Exsultet, a brightness caught my eye and I looked up to see the bowl sitting on the back table by the entrance door with a brilliant blue/white flame about three feet in height and a mesmerized acolyte. The flame was so brilliant it lit the back of the candle-lit church. Thereafter I always used just a little epsom salts and rubbing alcohol.”

At St. John’s in the Village, Manhattan, the Rev. Lloyd Prator reports: “We use an old fashioned cast iron dutch oven, with its lid off and positioned nearby. We put about three cups of wood chips in the bottom. The wood chips are the sort you can get at any pet store since they often serve to line the bottoms of (I am sorry to say) hamster cages. In fact, we refer to them in our ceremonial notes as the sacred paschal hamster chips. Three minutes before the liturgy is to begin, the deacon soaks the wood chips in lighter fuel. When the celebrant lights the taper and touches the wood chips they go up with a great (but harmless) “whoosh!” Everyone jumps.”

The Rev. Canon Tony Jewiss, Deputy Executive Officer of General Convention, offers perhaps the most theologically appropriate recipe. “I always use about a cup of kosher salt, saturate it with a cup of rubbing alcohol and lay twigs over the top. The fire lights immediately but does not flare up, burns with a nice white light and soon ignites the twigs as well. If there are not too many and they are not substantial, the twigs burn up quite quickly and the alcohol burns away about the same time, making moving along with the service both safe and easy.”

At All Saints’, Briarcliff, we have a designated “Parish Pyromaniac.” Each year Peggy Kienzle gathers the material for the New Fire. She won’t tell me specifically what goes into it – and I’ve learned not to ask – but one ingredient is left-over, dried-out palms. I love the symbolism of connecting the triumphal entry to the new light of Christ.

Perhaps the most important piece of advice is to have a fire extinguisher handy. Just in case.