Today, across the world, we encounter a profound stillness. Symbolically, on Holy Saturday, churches, chapels, and tabernacles are empty - sanctuary lamps extinguished, and altars are stripped bare. This bareness mirrors the tomb itself and draws us into the mystery of Holy Saturday.
Holy Saturday, often overshadowed by the solemnity of Good Friday and the jubilance of Easter Sunday, calls us to pause, to wait, and to reflect. Today occupies a unique space between two defining moments of the Christian faith.
What insights does this day offer us? Might this day of invitational waiting speak to us of the quiet, hidden processes that precede transformation. Can we, like the disciples of old, sit with our doubts and hesitations, acknowledging that the path to new life is often paved with darkness, difficulty, and deferred answers? Holy Saturday beckons us to acknowledge that inner change often comes not with instant clarity, but in the spaces in between, where our belief is stretched and refined.
“Transformation is not a future event. It is a present activity.”
Holy Saturday’s spiritual richness lies in its invitation to trust even when we cannot see the way forward. Our hope has the capacity to sustain and reassure us that God’s love holds us through all the seasons of life.
Let us pause to embrace this sacred, solemn interlude, and allow its stillness to deepen our awareness of the God of Goodness, who is always birthing new life.
-Sister Nancy Wales, csj
“The slow work of God is so much greater than the instantaneous. We can’t rush things into existence.”
Image: Alicia Quan/Unsplash
