On Good Friday, Jesus dies on the Cross for our sins. On Easter, He arises, and we rejoice. What happens on Holy Saturday? What place, spiritually, does it have in our Christian journey?
Holy Saturday is a time of waiting...recovering...being alone...being in the darkness...questioning and wondering why this horrific death had to occur. It is painful and lonely, but it is necessary.
Many saints of the Church have talked about "the dark night of the soul". That time of spiritual dryness, when Our Lord takes away all the sweet consolations we first had at the time of our conversion, is necessary for spiritual growth.
Few, if any, of us would *choose* painful and difficult times, and yet, they come. They come and we resist. We rebel. We do not want to have to experience them. We try to overcome difficult times on our own, and, often end up numb to all feelings and closed to all joy.
Jesus' three days in the tomb are symbolic of our own lives and our own spiritual journeys. We have the time when we feel Jesus walking by our side. We can speak to him. He is with us, communicating with us daily.
Then, it seems, He is gone. He is in a dark tomb and all the joy seems over. All we see is a stone, too big for us to move.
What is happening? Jesus is working in a way we can not imagine. Our Lord's apostles saw Him die on the cross. That first Holy Saturday must have been an agonizingly lonely time for them.
What was really happening, while His body laid in the tomb? The Church tells us that Christ was, at that very moment, announcing His victory over death to those faithful who came before Him and hoped for the coming of the savior.
God is working in our lives, even during the trying times--even during the dry times. In order to get to the Resurrection, we must experience the tomb.
2 comments:
Interesting post. I must admit, I never thought much about Holy Saturday, though it does feel like a time of waiting.
I got the idea, today, from Fr. Corapi. I got to hear his talk on Holy Saturday twice!
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