麻豆社

Good Morning.

Today, Holy Saturday, is perhaps the strangest day in the Christian year. Because nothing really happens. There is a great stillness. A disconcerting silence. There is expectation in the air. But we just have to wait. Alan E Lewis in his book 鈥淏etween Cross and Resurrection鈥� describes it as 鈥渘o man鈥檚 land鈥� and 鈥渁n anonymous counterfeit moment in the Gospel story.鈥�

Only St Matthew鈥檚 Gospel has any account of what happens on Holy Saturday. The Pharisees and the chief priests go to Pilate and ask him to give the order for Jesus鈥� tomb to be made secure. He also puts a guard on duty for good measure. Meanwhile Jesus鈥� mother, the other women and his disciples, no doubt bereft with sorrow and incredulous that it has come to this, can do nothing but hide away and wait.

So today churches are being prepared for tomorrow. After the solemnness of Lent, flowers are arranged, white replaces the sombre purple and Easter gardens are made ready. And then the waiting continues until later this evening or first thing tomorrow when it will be time to revisit the tomb once again to find out what has happened.

Of course, like any good novel which you have read more than once 鈥� or that movie which is always worth another viewing 鈥� we know how the story will turn out in the morning. But we, nevertheless, as Christians we hear it again and again 鈥� because the impact on us, when the waiting is over, varies according to our ever-changing circumstances.

Fr James Martin, writing in the Jesuit Review, makes the simple but wonderful point that 鈥淢ost of our days are spent on Holy Saturday鈥�. And he lists a whole series of things that you or I might be waiting for over a short or long period of time.

But in the meantime .we just get on with things. Sometimes it鈥檚 easy. Sometimes it鈥檚 not. But in true Philip Larkin style, who proclaimed that 鈥榙ays are what we live in鈥�, we get on with life; and we wait, and not a lot discernibly changes for most of us.

Today the digital culture challenges our ability to be patient and to wait: even if we know what the answer is likely to be in the end. Holy Saturday is a reminder that in the jungle of messages and words and activity which characterises much of what modern living is about -being patient and learning to wait can be immensely fulfilling.

And when the waiting is over and, in this case Easter arrives 鈥� I hope that you all have a happy and blessed Easter day tomorrow when no doubt quite a lot will happen!

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