"No one has greater love than this, to lay down one's life for one's friends" - John 15:13
"Easter Saturday", 2010, Mark Cazalet
Easter Saturday, usually called Holy Saturday, can seem to be a non-day. The church is still in silence, the tabernacle is empty, there will not even be a Mass until late at night*. Yet this is a day of the most radiant expectation. Think of the wonder of being on the brink of something you most long for: a birth, a wedding, a glorious fulfillment. It seems almost too good to be true, that tomorrow Jesus will rise from the dead and transform our lives.
All we have longed for during Lent is about to come to an unimaginable climax of reality. Mark Cazalet draws with colored chalk on paper to show a little clearing in the small wood near his Suffolk home. The light is ethereal. We know we are in the presence of something greater than we can see.
Grief + Anticipation + Hope
a Holy Saturday blessing in the time of mourning
oh God, there are no more answers, only silence, and the echoes of yesterday’s questions
oh God soften my heart to be able to mourn what is now lost
God have mercy
Christ have mercy
Spirit have mercy
O God unbind this sorrow
Let me lament and cry and tremble
for one lies broken–
poured out and spent.
entombed
i want to listen in the quiet of this small space
and wait
until I get used to the dark
so i can see the cracks in the foundations of the world
left by the thunder of your passing
to see all the ragged truth of what is
to touch and feel and love and hold the edges of what was
to honor what is forever gone
and love well
what is eternally given
blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted
Matthew 5:4
God have mercy
Christ have mercy
Spirit have mercy
it’s OK to just curl up now. I’ve got you.
*In the Roman Catholic tradition, a tabernacle is where they keep the 'reserved sacrament'. It's typically an ornate box made of gold, where any consecrated but unconsumed host (communion wafers) are kept...until the next Mass, to take to shut-ins, etc. Once it is prayed over, it is the Body of Christ, so they reverence it.