As an altar boy growing up, I both loved and dreaded Holy Saturday. I loved it because we got to light a fire in a charcoal grill out in front of the church as part of the mass. That was cool! I dreaded it because it was, perhaps, the longest mass of the year and I could barely stand by the end of it!
Over time my appreciation for Holy Saturday has changed a lot.
There are actually nine readings for today – each followed by a psalm. So, needless to say, I will not try to comment on each! But I would, in fact, encourage everyone to check out the readings. They really represent the DNA of our faith story and provide a sweeping view across time of the meta story that we situate ourselves in.
And while Holy Saturday is partially a prelude to Easter Sunday, I think of it as having an integrity and energy all to itself.
As I have mentioned before, when we read the Christian scriptures we already know how they end. It can, thus, be hard to fully appreciate the devastation and disorientation that the disciples faced and needed to sit with during this in between time.
In our lives, however, we do not know how so many stories will end. And the devastations and disorientations we experience may feel very present to us.
I have written in a prior blog post that Holy Saturday energy is very present when “we have experienced something painful that has upended our reality and just do not know how this story is going to turn out. Maybe we thought God had our back and then seemed to disappear on us. Maybe the people we thought would be there for us took off. Maybe the blessing that we hoped for never came.”
We’re just left holding a lot of broken pieces unsure of how they will come back together (if ever). We’re left facing a lot of uncertainty. We might feel numb and helpless. We might feel anger. We might rage at the unfairness of it all. We might not even have words.
That’s where Holy Saturday finds us.
It is hard not to lose heart under these circumstances.
And, yet, if we can remain in the quiet of the “tomb,” it is possible that something else might emerge. It rarely ever takes just one day, however. Unlike Jesus, sometimes we must remain for some time in those spaces.
I came across a beautiful poem by a poet that my daughter, Kateri, put me on to. His name is James Pearson. In his poem, After Samhain (pronounced Sow-wen), he says:
Now, for a while, the
dark stays dark. The long nights
will be long no matter
how you pray for light.
This god will not be rushed.
But she will offer you
the thick black folds of her coat,
where you’re finally free
to lose everything
that can’t be kept
Holy Saturday offers us a darkness that stays dark no matter how we pray for light, and its energy will not be rushed. And yet even in that darkness, may we feel held by a God who will help us lose “everything that can’t be kept” so that we, too, might find new life.
4 Comments
Joan
Loved this. Will forward to others.
Theresa Tensuan
James Pearson’s words are reminding me of Adrienne Rich’s lines from “Natural Resources,” recently shared by Cara Curtis (from the Word and World mentee cohort):
My heart is moved by all I cannot save:
so much has been destroyed
I have to cast my lot with those
who age after age, perversely,
with no extraordinary power,
reconstitute the world.
A passion to make, and make again
where such un-making reigns.
Cara was mourning the closing of her beloved Sandy Spring Friends School was noting that “all of us who were touched by [the community’s[ lessons can, with no extraoridnary power, ‘let our lives speak’ to that truth wherever we are. We can be, and plant, and grow that community. And in that way, the heart of Sandy Spring Friends School can be saved — no matter what.”
Sue Staropoli
What a powerful message for these times of uncertainty. We are called to live in the darkness in trust and love. Thanks so much, Mike
George Dardess
Mike—
Here’s another wonderful poem to add: Vassar Miller’s “Easter Eve.”
The day does not speak above a whisper, is a high dividing
upon a moment into ebbing and flowing,
two pairs of lips neither pressing nor quite parting,
the twilight between sleep and waking,
the bowl of hush held lifted to the bird’s first trilling.
Yet the day does not wait. It has become a waiting
as we have become our shadows stuffed full of wind and walking,
and if my hand reached toward you, it would pass through you.
For the world has become a dream of that sleeping Head
which on Friday we pierced and folded in dust
until He awakens tomorrow when the light of His Rising
hardens to hills and crystallizes to rocks and ripples to streams.