Holy Saturday

“Do you work wonders for the dead? *

will those who have died stand up and give you thanks?

Will your loving-kindness be declared in the grave? *

your faithfulness in the land of destruction?

Will your wonders be known in the dark? *

or your righteousness in the country where all is forgotten?”

Psalm 88, Holy Saturday, Morning Prayer, the Daily Office Book, Year One

There are times when we are in the dark, when shadows engulf us. This is how it is for us. There are times, when despair is all around us in worries and in real trials of life. It seems that there is no hope, and that all we sought and cherished is slipping away. There are times of unspeakable suffering. We must face them straight on. Embrace the time. Sit with the trial, the despair, even embrace it, be vulnerable to it and learn your truth revealed in it. Enter into the silence. Own it, embrace it as yours. We know this is a part of the wholeness of our being. It is not an endless night we face, though moonless and deep in darkness, it is not without yet a light rising, just beyond the horizon, to meet us again. Though the shadows of hardship may cast a deep dark shadow over our hearts and our minds, and it may seem over our very being, Christ will rise again, and again, and again, to our need for the light within. God’s great compassionate gift is the heart we now possess, once immersed in God’s love, this new heart never forgets. We need only to sit, like Mary Magdalene, releasing our tears in the dark of the deadly night, resting in the silence, still trusting our hearts to remember and the light within to again emerge.