Whew wasn’t getting here a push! 40 days (absent Sundays) from Ash Wednesday until today (Part One). Feels like 4 years in chronological time but no, 40 days, a Lenten quarantina if you recall the Venetian term. Like a new driver, or a grammatical period, or much of the world today, or a Jewish shabbat, Holy Saturday is a full stop to our liturgical march. Jesus literally shabbats in the tomb, our Jewish brothers and sisters enjoy Passover, and we do….absolutely nothing. Zip, zilch, zero, nada. Even the Prayer Book Holy Saturday service fails us because it’s so dang short, the most laconic in the entire Book!
Pauses in life are essential. Muscles actually grow after they are exercised, in the pause. Musical notes by definition depend upon the spaces between them to provide proper expressional meaning, as do things like letters (why the space bar below is the largest surface area on the keyboard by the by), heart beats, breaths, and any decent marital argument. Literally, it’s the pause which refreshes, and Holy Saturday (Part One) is a full stop pause. Even Egeria notes that Bishop Cyril sends the assembly home early today from normal worship, after an exhausting previous several days. (Remember, they are still fasting from the Saturday evening meal a week earlier!)
So please enjoy the briefest single reflection of these 40 days, and remember….pause. It’s Holy Saturday after all (Part One.)
- Nope, no pithy platitudes to ponderous perform.
- Uh-uh, no Ignatian exercises, video clips from Jerusalem, or special habits to adopt. I meant it. Full stop pause.
- Yep, you guessed it. See above #1 and #2.