Holy Saturday is an odd time, intermediate and suspended. There's nothing happening liturgically (at least in this diocese) between the afternoon of Good Friday and the Easter Vigil late Saturday. I’m never quite sure what to do with myself. Should I go about my business as if it were any other Saturday? Presumably one should try to maintain at least some degree of continuity with the day before and the day after, but how? At any rate there is always some amount of preparation for Easter eating and visiting involved, especially for most women, without whom holidays at home would be pretty bare things. I think for at least three years in a row I intended to listen to Bach’s St. Matthew Passion on Holy Saturday. But of course there was never time, so I gave that up.
Meanwhile, on the original Holy Saturday, Jesus’s body lay in the tomb while he did whatever incomprehensible thing it was that the Nicene Creed expresses as “He descended into hell.” So maybe it’s okay for us to just step aside, and remember that the work of salvation is in its essence not ours, apart from our consent.
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