Holy Saturday
Having bought a linen cloth, (Joseph of Arimathea) took (Jesus) down, wrapped him in the linen cloth and laid him in a tomb that had been hewn out of the rock, Then he rolled a stone against the entrance to the tomb. Mary Magdalene and Mary the mother of Joses watched where he was laid. – Mark 15:46-47
Holy Saturday. The forgotten day. The Church has no public liturgy for this day, other than the Liturgy of the Hours. Moreover, the way our parishes tend to schedule the Triduum celebrations on three consecutive nights – Holy Thursday, Good Friday, and the Easter Vigil – makes Holy Saturday itself all the more invisible. Liturgically, we lose the sense of the Resurrection happening “on the third day”. Moreover, we easily slide past Holy Saturday in our rush to the Vigil. This is a shame, as Holy Saturday has much to teach us. Let us pause, then, by the tomb of Jesus, as Mary Magdalene and the other women did, that we might see what this time might reveal to us. Continue reading “The Liminal Sabbath”