Holy Saturday

Holy Saturday can be a strange day. What do I do? Holy Saturday is an in-between day, after the events of Good Friday with all that went wrong. We are in a hard place – it’s as if all hope, love and faith is squeezed from us.

When I was a curate, Holy Saturday evening was an evening of craft work preparing the church for Easter Day. We listened to the Gospels being read, we prayed and we sung some Taize chants:-

Jesus, remember me when you come into your Kingdom.
Jesus, remember me when you come into your Kingdom.
 
We kept this vigil until the sun rose on Easter morn.
 
Easter Eve – Vassar Miller
The day does not speak above a whisper, is a high dividing
upon a moment into ebbing and flowing,
two pairs of lips neither pressing nor quite yet parting,
the twilight between sleep and waking,
the bowl of hush held lifted to the bird’s first trilling.
Yet the day does not wait.  It has become a waiting
as we have become our shadows stuffed full of wind and walking,
and if my hand reached toward you, it would pass through you.
For the world has become a dream of that sleeping Head
which on Friday we pierced and folded in dust
until He awakens tomorrow when the light of His Rising
hardens to hills and crystallizes to rocks and ripples to streams.

Wait for the Lord,
Whose day is near.
Wait for the Lord:
Keep watch, take heart!

Taize
 
Fr.Derek Akker

Anthem: O vos omnes – Casals
Anthem: Solus ad victimam – Kenneth Leighton