Forgotten Holy Saturday

Holy Saturday is a silent day in the Church's catechesis. There is talk of the supper, the cross and immediately of the resurrection. As if this one day was for waiting. As with the deceased, who in the morgue is waiting for the date of his funeral to be set. That's probably why we couldn't stand this Saturday silence, just before Easter. That day, between the cross and the resurrection, never acquired a sufficiently strong meaning in their religious imagination.

In the discovery of the theological message of Holy Saturday in the contemporary Church, the Swiss theologian Hans Urs von Balthasar has the greatest merit. It was he, as one of the few theologians of the modern history of the Church, who recalled the significance not only of Christ's suffering, but also of his death. Not only in the sense that He really died, but that He was in a state of death. He reflected on what happened after Christ was laid in the tomb until His resurrection. It is true that this subject was written in antiquity, but it intensively returned in modern times in the current of Lutheran Protestantism. But it never resonated with the intensity with which Balthasar captured it.

Forsaken Christ

Father Hans Urs von Balthasar did not develop the theology of the cross alone. It was the fruit of friendship with Adrienne von Speyr. In her attempts to understand Holy Saturday, she drew his attention not so much to death itself as to the state of persistence in the death of the Son of God. It was a clear breakthrough: he died on the cross, but only in his human body. After all, God, who is the source of life, cannot die. The mystic, however, emphasizes all those elements of His dying that show that He suffered much more spiritually than physically. Neither the scourging and the way of the cross, nor the nailing to the cross and the chest-tearing pain were greater than the pain that tore at His heart. This is why, the cry of the dying Jesus must be taken seriously: "God, God, why have you forsaken me?" But what does this cry mean? Can the Son of God be abandoned by God? Besides, why doesn't he call Him his Father? Did Christ doubt on the cross?

Cursed for us

If we remember Jesus' weeping over Jerusalem, which did not know the time of its visitation, we understand a little of what von Speyr is trying to say. Jesus experiences a deep sorrow that increases in him until the time of Gethsemane and the crucifixion. "My soul is sad even unto death," Jesus complains to his disciples during the supper. The darkness envelops his thoughts and feelings more and more, most eloquently shown by the scene of the prayer in the Garden of Olives and the drops of blood that dramatically express his fear. The cry from the cross is the culmination of this inner darkness. Its essence, however, is not physical pain. When Christ died, it was not the pain of the flesh that frightened Him so terribly. What filled Him with such a terrible sense of abandonment was His own heart, but now filled with the darkness of every man's sins committed throughout human history, including those in the future. It was sin, understood as a spiritual separation from God, that became fully his share. "He became accursed for us," St. Paul wrote bluntly. That is why Martin Luther rightly wrote that the pain of the Son of God after death was even greater. There, resting in the tomb, He did not "rest in peace", He experienced what is the consequence of the life of man turned away from Love.

Dark Night

Christ's spiritual, not merely physical, suffering was real compassion with sinful man. This is attested to by the last words of Jesus, in which he trustingly entrusts himself to the Father: "Father, into your hands I commend my spirit". So, it was a prayer full of faith in the existence of God who is his Father, and yet full of pain, which humanly can only be described in this way: I feel as if you do not exist. Such a descriptive language of Christ's experience is legitimate. It was used by many saints and mystics who, in union with Christ, experienced, at least in part, what he too experienced on the Cross and laid in the tomb: innocent, full of trusting prayer, and at the same time full of pain, as if abandonment. And even from God. It was for this reason that Time magazine once wrote that Mother Teresa was a hidden atheist, because in her notes she admitted to a similar experience, to the feeling of total abandonment by God, or even the lack of feeling that He even exists. In the tradition of the Church, St. John of the Cross gave this state of the soul the name "dark night." The concept has become entrenched in tradition and still finds its application today where an innocent person suffers, asking God: where are you?

Not maximizing brutality in the scenes of the Way of the Cross – as Mel Gibson did in the film "The Passion of the Christ", very beautiful – but the spiritual reading of mystics brings us closer to the experience of the suffering Christ.

Descent and Ascension

But what happened on Holy Saturday? Was it just the pain of a prolonged cross? One can say so, but it must be added at once that the tradition of the Church has included this biblical scene in the truth of faith that speaks of Christ's descent into hell. And it seems, writes Balthasar, that the Son of God was not lying, but went somewhere, to put it somewhat colloquially. In fact, the biblical language of Christ's "ascension" to the Father, finds its inverted meaning here. If the dead Son of God returned to union with his Father in heaven by "ascension," then the opposite way, separation from God, must be "descent." The Church's profession of faith precisely expresses this truth: Christ did not go anywhere after death, he did not change his place, but as a dead man he rested in the tomb. And yet it was precisely then and there, in His dead body, turned out to be a Savior, in solidarity with those who had distanced themselves from God. And it is not simply a question of their lack of faith, but of a life that in any way denies love, and therefore, ultimately, the life of every human being. Being dead of the Son of God, then, means being with the heart with those who, because of sin and death, experience the darkness of this distance.

Hope for all

The tradition of the Church has very carefully named the state of the soul which Christ experienced in himself. One speaks of hells or abyss, but not of hell. Not about the damned, because Christ can no longer raise them to the Father. The abyss, therefore, would symbolically speak of the souls of those who died and were sinners in any degree, but asking for salvation. Those who have not completely turned away from God. Hence, this symbolic division has been preserved in the Catechism and speaks of places: hell (Latin: inferno) and hells (Latin: infernos). Jesus was in hells, but not in hell, not with the damned. But Balthasar asks: if what Christ experienced in the state of his death as a spiritual union with every man in his sin, could he omit the damned? For even if the damned reject this solidarity of God and do not want eternal life in God, and therefore do not receive it, does it mean that their souls have been omitted by Christ "descending" into hells (inferos)?

The biblical tradition and the subsequent tradition of the Church, spiritually deepened by mystics, speak of the unity of Christ precisely with all sinners, except that some of them, called damned, reject this solidarity, reject the gift of salvation. But here too we can ask another question: can we be sure, then, that the damned exist at all? Is it not the case that, encountering God's love, this extraordinary grace of uniting Christ crucified and buried with every sinful man, this every person will not ultimately say "no" to God?

The Church does not answer in the affirmative but reserves the right to hope that in fact everyone will one day say "yes" to God.

 
The time of the Great Sabbath

This extraordinary account of the buried Christ – who in the state of death does not so much wait as suffer and save dead sinners – is an astonishing discovery of Holy Saturday. It is an invitation to live Holy Saturday like the Savior, in communion with all those who live in the darkness of sin. Remembering that the silence of Holy Saturday is a conscious resignation of the Church from all liturgies – remembering that the evening vigil already belongs to Easter – it is a sign of the total emptying of the Church following the example of the dead Savior. 

And in the light of the significance of this day, which speaks to us of the Church renouncing Mass and Communion for the sake of the forsaken Christ, to feel called to accompany the abandoned Christ. For example, by the merciful love awakened in us, such as Christ has for everyone, which does not allow anyone to be excluded. It does not allow one to feel better because of belonging to the Church or even one's deep faith, but exactly the opposite, in the name of this faith, to empathize with everyone, even the greatest sinners. And just love them. Do not put anyone outside the brackets of your life and desire: that all of us be one. Isn't this a harbinger of some new civilization?

Without understanding all the fear of Holy Saturday, it is impossible to comprehend the euphoria of the Resurrection. Without the darkness of the tomb, it is impossible to see the dawn of Holy Sunday. It's a different kind of time that moves in a different rhythm. This day keeps us in its gloomy severity. It is not only the trauma of a tormented, disfigured, broken and dead body, but also a scandal of mercy and innocence. The expectation on Holy Saturday essentially represents the state of the Christian torn between the law of this world and the truth of Christ. A time of true transgression of the "tragedy in the face of grace," in which we find that victory both already exists and has not yet come. In this way it takes us back to the time of waiting, when we see that " all creation is groaning in labor pains even until now " and refers us to a certain experience of actualization of this truth: The Christian lives and should experience Holy Saturday in every day of this life.

Thoughts from Saint Faustina: Jesus to Saint Faustina: You are not yet in your homeland; so, go, fortified by My grace, and fight for My kingdom in human souls; fight as a king’s child would; and remember that the days of your exile will pass quickly, and with them the possibility of earning merits for heaven. I expect from you (…) a great number of souls who will glorify my mercy for all eternity (Diary 1489).

fr. george 

THE NOVENA TO THE DIVINE MERCY - Second Day:

Today bring to Me THE SOULS OF PRIESTS AND RELIGIOUS and immerse them in My unfathomable mercy. It was they who gave Me strength to endure My bitter Passion. Through them as through channels My mercy flows out upon mankind.        

Most Merciful Jesus, from whom comes all that is good, increase Your grace in men and women consecrated to Your service, that they may perform worthy works of mercy; and that all who see them may glorify the Father of Mercy who is in heaven.       

Eternal Father, turn Your merciful gaze upon the company of chosen ones in Your vineyard—upon the souls of priests and religious; and endow them with the strength of Your blessing. For the love of the Heart of Your Son in which they are enfolded, impart to them Your power and light, that they may be able to guide others in the way of salvation and with one voice sing praise to Your boundless mercy for ages without end. Amen.

Pray the Divine Mercy Chaplet