Waiting
We don’t like to wait, do we… When we hear the word ‘wait’ we cringe…things to do, places to go, tasks to accomplish, someone has not slowed that down.
At this point in the Easter Triduum, that’s the point. Holy Saturday is the day in between it all.
Holy Saturday (in Latin, Sabbatum Sanctum ), the ‘day of the entombed Christ,’ is the Lord’s day of rest, for on that day Christ’s body lay in His tomb. We recall the Apostle’s Creed which says “He descended unto the dead.” It is a day of suspense between two worlds, that of darkness, sin and death, and that of the Resurrection and the restoration of the Light of the World. For this reason no divine services are held until the Easter Vigil at night. This day between Good Friday and Easter Day makes present to us the end of one world and the complete newness of the era of salvation inaugurated by the Resurrection of Christ.
Ideally, Holy Saturday should be the quietest day of the year (although this is not so easy in a busy household with children as it might be in a convent or monastery.) Nightfall on Holy Saturday is time for joy and greatest expectation because of the beautiful liturgy of the Easter Vigil, often referred to as the Mother of all Holy Vigils, or the Great Service of Light.
It is a day on which people bring their baskets of food for the Easter feast to church and have them blessed, which is a beautiful tradition. Because taking meals together ‘at table’ has always been part of ‘sacred times, sacred places’ from the beginning. Preparing that food, sharing it as a meal and even cleaning up together afterward is all very important communal time to give and take with family, friends, whoever our community includes. It’s biblical, and we need to slow down and make all of it a festive occasion (as, say, the Italians do, among others). It is nearly time to feast, so let’s prepare.
During the day, the preparations at home which must be made for Easter Day are appropriate, however, because they keep our attention fixed on the holiness and importance of the most central feast of the Church.
In that book I highly recommend (see post below) “Death on a Friday Afternoon,” Fr. Richard John Neuhaus encourages us to take this time of quiet and preparation to consider the two worlds we are between, what we call the ‘real world’ and….the real world. And consider how this one helps us prepare for the next.
The philosopher Alfred North Whitehead said that the only simplicity to be trusted is the simplicity to be found on the far side of complexity. The only joy to be trusted is the joy on the far side of a broken heart; the only life to be trusted is the life on the far side of death. Stay a while, with Christ and him crucified.
We contemplate for a time the meaning of Good Friday, and then return to what is called the real world of work and shopping and ocmmuter trains and homes. As we come out of a movie theater and shake our heads to clear our minds of another world where we lived for a time in suspended disbelief, as we reorient ourselves to reality, so we leave our contemplation–we leave the church building, we close the book–where for a time another reality seemed possible, believable, even real.
I must admit, there is a television on, though on mute, as I write this, and I wasn’t paying attention. When I picked up my tea to sip and think about what this all means to me and to us, I saw that a TV commercial was on and the screen was filled with two words: “BUT WAIT!” I smiled. It’s for one of those gadgets ‘you can’t buy in the stores’ and it was a pause to say “THERE’S MORE!”
Yes, I thought, there certainly is. That’s the point. We are waiting now, and preparing for it.