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There is a lot going on during Holy Week. We obviously pay special attention to Good Friday and Easter. Even Maundy Thursday we remember the installation of the Eucharist and Jesus’ command that we love one another as seen in his washing of the disciple’s feet.

Sadly, many of us have lost sight of Holy Saturday. It is an important time that reflects on the time between Jesus’ death and his resurrection. Holy Saturday reminds us to wait with Jesus for the coming of the third day. It asks us to trust Jesus in the darkest trials to know that something good awaits us.

At this point in the gospel story there is nothing left for the disciples to do. There are no more acts of faith to perform. All that remains is the waiting.  Holy Saturday reminds us that our hope is not in the things that we do. Our hope in the God who created all and instituted the day of rest to remind us of our limits.

We invite you to reflect on this devotional below as we wait in the darkness.

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AT THE CROSS
I wait,
And time ticks past.
I gaze,
Made silent by the sight.
I watch,
As soldiers meticulously move
Executing each terrible, torturous task.
I gasp,
Still life lingers in His fragile, broken form.
I flinch,
As blow by blow,
Nails bite deep through flesh to find wood.
I stand
As He is lifted high,
Silhouetted 'gainst the sky which He has made.
I weep
As His cry echoes deep in my hardened, calloused heart.
I wail,
As He screams 'it is complete,
Finished, final, said and done.'
I fall,
As the sky turns inky black
And the sun and moon and stars forget to shine.
I kneel,
As worlds collide,
And time ticks by;
What once bound, no longer seems to hold.I bow, For part of me is gone,
Kept forever on Calvary's painful peak.
I wait, At the foot of the cross, to begin my journey home.

God sent Jesus to make free persons of us. He has chosen compassion as the way to freedom. That is a great deal more radical that you might at first imagine. It means that God wanted to liberate us, not by removing suffering from us, but by sharing it with us. Jesus is God-who-suffers-with-us. Over time, the word “sympathizing” has become a somewhat feebler way of expressing the reality of “suffering with” someone. Nowadays, when someone says: “I have sympathy for you,” it has a rather distant ring about it. The feeling, at least for me, is of someone looking down from above. The word’s original meaning of “suffering together with someone” has been partly lost. That’s why I’ve opted for the word “compassion”. It’s warmer, more intimate, and closer. It’s taking part in the suffering of the other, being totally a fellow human being in suffering…
Jesus is the revelation of God’s unending, unconditional love for us human beings. Everything that Jesus has done, said, and undergone is meant to show us that the love we most long for is given to us by God, not because we deserved it, but because God is a God of love.

Dear Lord,
Help me keep my eyes on you. You are the incarnation of Divine Love, you are the expression of God’s infinite compassion, you are the visible manifestation of the Father’s holiness. You are beauty, goodness, gentleness, forgiveness, and mercy. In you all can be found. Outside of you nothing can be found. Why should I look elsewhere or go elsewhere? You have the words of eternal life, you are food and drink, you are the Way, the Truth, and the Life. You are the light that shines in the darkness, the lamp on the lampstand, the house on the hilltop. You are the perfect Icon of God. In you and through you I can see the Heavenly Father, and with you I can find my way to him. O Holy One, Beautiful One, Glorious One, be my Lord, my Savior, my Redeemer, my Guide, my Consoler, my Comforter, my Hope, my Joy, and my Peace. To you I want to give all that I am-all that I have, think, do, and feel. It is yours, O Lord. Please accept it and make it fully your own.
Amen

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