Holy Saturday is a neglected day in parish life. Few people attend the Services. Popular piety usually reduces Holy Week to one day ”” Holy Friday. This day is quickly replaced by another ”” Easter Sunday. Christ is dead and then suddenly alive. Great sorrow is suddenly replaced by great joy. In such a scheme Holy Saturday is lost.
In the understanding of the Church, sorrow is not replaced by joy; it is transformed into joy. This distinction indicates that it is precisely within death the Christ continues to effect triumph.
”“Alexander Schmemann (1921-1983)
The truth of this is so profound. We have an ecumenical rotation of services during Holy Week here, and on Wednesday it was my turn to offer the homily/mediation/sermon at the Baptist church. The steps, from the floor of the room up to the level where the pulpit was, were covered with lilies and all was done in Easter decorations… It felt interestingly incongruous (and yet poignant) to preach about betrayal that day. It isn’t merely the Baptists and their decorations however. Attendance fell off significantly this year for the Triduum in my parish. “Too many other things” for people to do has been the excuse.
Lovely comment #1, thank you. This important day is so neglected.
if you go here:
http://www.textweek.com/
You will see resources for the following–
April 1: Maundy Thursday
April 2: Good Friday
April 3/4: Easter Vigil
Nothing for Holy Saturday.
There is a service in the BCP for Holy Saturday… sort of. It’s a set of notes and a collect on page 283. I’ve never been at a church that offers it, and the only times I’ve even heard of it being done is during a break in rehearsals for the Great Vigil.
If anything could make me regret the Great Vigil, it would be this: it takes over Holy Saturday and leaves little or no room to experience the in-between time.
Ross, I think that’s true in many places. But at the Catholic church into which I have just been received, things were done differently and, I think, better; we candidates and catechumens attended a 9:00 am “Prayer of the Morning Watch,” with no lilies or decorations yet in place. The Easter Vigil did not begin until 8:30, probably in order to begin in darkness with the new fire.