Holy Saturday Meditations

Today, all is silent. The God of the universe has died in the flesh, He has been laid in the tomb. All around the world, the Mass has been silenced; the Pure Sacrifice is laid aside; the Eucharist, hidden away; the Altar candles, put out. All is in the ground, all is dead, all is in solemn quietude.

Christ our God has died on the Cross for our salvation and the undoing of the Curse of Adam, becoming a Curse for us, and His Soul has left His Body. Mystery of mysteries! as Our Lord's Body is laying in the tomb dead according to the flesh and separated from His human soul, even so the eternal Word never ceases to be united to it, preserving it incorrupt. True Life exists in death - the victory of the human race! And that same creative and eternal Word that is united to His Body speaks profoundly to our souls in the quiet silence of the tomb, though His physical mouth is fallen silent.

Let us return to the tomb with Our Lord, the tomb we entered in our Baptism. Let us not just remember, but be mystically present there in our meditation. The tomb and the Virgin's womb speak one testimony and one Life and are one in the Life of Christ they embody and make present, the Life we clothed ourselves with in Baptism, the Life that comes not otherwise than though the sufferings of this life and our many crosses. Christ is hidden once for the development of His Life and unutterable communion with His mother, and again He is hidden in the tomb for the salvation of mankind; and these two joined, hidden periods in Our Lord's life help us to remember that His Life Divine and Human comes not to us nor is embodied in Him except through suffering and death. At our Baptism we are born, and we die; we die, and we are born anew to eternal life; we clothe ourselves with Christ our God, from His conception in the waters of His mother's womb to His death in the tomb, in order that in rising from our enlightening by the Spirit, the eternal Word would enlighten our minds and our hearts and come to be present in our soul; that Jesus Christ would be born, death and life, Body and Blood, Soul and Divinity, whole and entire, in the midst of us; and so in His glory transform us body and soul into His own Body and members of Him so intimately that no more intimate can be imagined.

And this Holy Saturday night, we proclaim with one accord: Alleluia! for Christ, the Light of the World, is rising as an Almighty Sun from the depths of the earth and the realm of the dead; behold, He arises in the East. Turn, turn, behold, the Lord God Almighty comes; let us greet the Rising Sun.

Lord Jesus Christ, Son of the Living God, have mercy on us sinners, love us we pray, turn us not away in your Divine and terrible wrath, but be our Divine Spouse instead. We remember you now, and on Divine Mercy Sunday, as our incredible Divine Lover; be present to us this Easter in a deeper way. We seek you and we love you; behold, it is written of your Resurrection in the sacred prophet: Let us press on to know the Lord. If we press on to know Him, His coming to us is assured, and He comes as the rain upon the earth, as the latter and former rains thereof. Amen, and come swiftly to us by your Spirit, Lord Jesus, as in heavy rain, as in a dry and thirsty land, where there is no water; for we pant for thirst of you O Jesus, we are a desert, let it rain your Spirit upon our hearts that we may know you more intimately. Spark fervent devotion to you in all of us, that we may teach sinners your ways, and many may be converted to you. And we pray that you come, whole and entire, through your Divine and Eucharistic Presence, Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity, and in your Spirit, for we thirst for you, O Lord our God.

We cling to the immortal and eternal power of the Resurrection of Jesus as our only Life.