11 April 2020
Holy Saturday
A few months ago, I con-celebrate a funeral mass of a gentleman who died from pancreatic cancer. I had known him and his wife and their daughter for many years. They had been supportive of my priestly vocation. After the funeral mass, I spoke with the widow. She expressed the difficulty of the new reality of having to live by herself and to do everything alone. I was a bit surprised to hear this statement because I had known her as a strong, independent woman. She is a former Naval Officer who became an entrepreneur. A few weeks ago, after the passing of my dad, I began to hear the same sentiments from my mother. I always knew my mom as a typical tiger mom in control of most of her life. Now she is showing her vulnerability. My mom does not seem to know what to do about the house and everything around her. These experiences make me realize more about the vulnerability of the widows, mothers, and women who have lost their loved ones.
Today is Holy Saturday, the interlude between the pain of the death of Jesus and the joy of His resurrection. Holy Saturday has also been celebrated as the Hour of Mary the Mother God. Today is the day when she is grieving with the pain of the death of her beloved son. We can imagine Mary not being able to sleep at all on Friday night after the death of Jesus. She might not have eaten since the arrest of Jesus. Even with all of her strengths, she is very weak on the morning after the death of her son. Now on this long Saturday, she might not know what to do next.
During the last three weeks, the entire world has been quarantined. Billions of people have to stay at home. Our world today is much like the situation of Holy Saturday when “there is a great silence on earth today.” All of us are waiting with sadness, anxiety and uncertainty like the Blessed Mother on Holy Saturday. Today is a good time for us to turn to the Blessed Mother and be with her. We can ask her to accompany us as well because she knows our feelings and sorrows. On this Holy Saturday, it is a good time for us to pray for all widows and women who lost their loved ones, especially for those who will celebrate their First Easter without their husband or love ones.
Holy Saturday can also be described with a biblical image of Jesus sleeping in the midst of the storm on the lake (Mark 4: 35 -41). The disciples were feeling a near death experience. Moreover, they had thought that God had died. Jesus disappeared from them. Their hopes disappeared as they could no longer rely on God. The disciples now have a similar experience during Holy Saturday. Jesus was crucified, he died and was buried. The disciples’ hope has died and has been buried. They fail to notice, however, that their hope still stands; that Jesus had to die so that he could raise them up. The Christian use of the concept of immortality of the soul explains how we are the same person who dies and who rises again. Without this connection provided by immortality, there is no point to talk about resurrection. St. Ambrose says that we need grace to accomplish this reunion. What we also need is someone who actually dies with the power to raise us up. And someone actually needs to atone for our sins. This is why Christ’s death and resurrection are central in our Catholic faith.
Pope Francis, in his 2020 Ubi et Orbi, used the image of Jesus asleep in the boat during the storm. The Pope reminded us that during this coronavirus outbreak, like the disciples in the Gospel, we were caught off guard by an unexpected, turbulent storm. We suddenly realized that we are on a fragile boat, feeling vulnerable and disoriented. However, Jesus is just sleeping. The Holy Father points out that “in spite of the tempest, he (Jesus) sleeps on soundly, trusting in the Father.” Pope Francis’s immediate predecessor, Pope Benedict XVI, explained that the image of Jesus asleep on the boat shows that God’s silence is part of the Christian revelation (Joseph Ratzinger, Credo For Today). God is the comprehensible word that comes to us, but He is also the silent, inaccessible and uncomprehended. Only when we have experienced him as silence can we have hope to hear his speech and trust him more.
This has been a difficult time. There is no doubt that the coronavirus outbreak has changed life for everyone around the world. On this Holy Saturday, let us pause for a moment and consider the moments of God’s silence. Does this particular moment of God’s silence have any meaning to you? Can you see the light of the Resurrected Christ shining on you no matter how fiercely the virus rages?