Holy Saturday

I've been trying to articulate my feelings about Holy Week in general. Last year, I spent Lent preparing for a pilgrimage to Scotland, which took place during my spring break which was also Holy Week. After such an experience, I found it hard to forge a Lenten practice this year and even harder to understand what I was feeling about the current Easter season.

Holy Saturday (which technically ended at sundown) is indicative of the dark feelings I have about this season. When I was younger, Easter was all fun and happiness — dying eggs, awaiting the Easter bunny, and celebrating a risen Savior. As I grew older, I recognized the truly sad nature of Good Friday, the event necessarily preceding the Festival Day. I find it hard to forget the feelings of sadness, guilt, and mourning associated with Jesus's sacrificial death to celebrate his resurrection just two days later. I almost feel like the period of grief should be longer: to really dwell on and fully understand this sacrifice; to recognize the conspicuous absence that occurs on Holy Saturday; to feel and confront loneliness, experiencing a real and painful desire for God. Not to be a sadist, but I think this is something Christians need to be reminded of more often and not just during Lent and Holy Week. To have an extended Holy Saturday would create a better understanding of the spiritual vulnerability of being human.

Holy Saturday is a day of silence, a day of waiting. God is dead. This day expresses the disconnection of modern humanity from God. So for now, I'll be depressing. Tomorrow is the day for hope.

"O Lord, God of my salvation, when, at night, I cry out in your presence, let my prayer come before you; incline your ear to my cry.

"For my soul is full of troubles, and my life draws near to Sheol. I am counted among those who go down to the Pit; I am like those who have no help, like those forsaken among the dead, like the slain that lie in the grave, like those whom you remember no more, for they are cut off from your hand. You have put me in the depths of the Pit, in the regions dark and deep. Your wrath lies heavy upon me, and you overwhelm me with all your waves.

"You have caused my companions to shun me; you have made me a thing of horror to them. I am shut in so that I cannot escape; my eye grows dim through sorrow. Every day I call on you, O Lord; I spread out my hands to you. Do you work wonders for the dead? Do the shades rise up to praise you? Is your steadfast love declared in the grave, or your faithfulness in Abaddon? Are your wonders known in the darkness, or your saving help in the land of forgetfulness?

"But I, O Lord, cry out to you; in the morning my prayer comes before you. O Lord, why do you cast me off? Why do you hide your face from me? Wretched and close to death from my youth up, I suffer your terrors; I am desperate. Your wrath has swept over me; your dread assaults destroy me. They surround me like a flood all day long; from all sides they close in on me. You have caused friend and neighbor to shun me; my companions are in darkness."
-Psalm 88

Here are several meditations by Cardinal Ratzinger, the current pope, who writes more eloquently than I.