Saturday 26 March 2016

Holy Saturday Reflection



According to Christian tradition today is called Holy Saturday, the “day in between” Good Friday and Easter Sunday. It recalls the phrase in the Creed that says Jesus “descended into hell” after his death on the cross. But, today is not a day to try to imagine what happened on that day two millennia ago after Jesus died on the cross outside the gates of Jerusalem. Nor is it exactly the same as Dante’s journey through Hell in the Inferno. All those people were dead. According to Nathan Michel, “What the paschal triduum [the three days: Friday, Saturday, Sunday] actual celebrates is mystery, not history…”[1] And mystery is always about the present. “They celebrate not what once happened to Jesus but what is now happening among us as a people….”[2]  What does it mean then that “Jesus descended into hell?”  It fits of course with the whole story of Jesus in the Gospels. Early in his life as a young adult, he made an option and moved very consciously to stand with those who were on the “periphery” of society. He entered their hell.
OK, so what is there today that corresponds to Jesus “descent into hell?”  I would like to suggest we consider those who “live in hell” today: those living in refugee camps, the drug addicts, the homeless, those living in the favelas on the outskirts of the major cities of the world or in the inner city slums. We might also want to take some time with those living with the last stages of a fatal disease like cancer, Lou Gehrig’s syndrome, clinical depression, schizophrenia, paranoia…. These people “live in hell” How about also those whose relatives, children, parents, mothers, sisters or brothers have disappeared, sometimes years ago? 
https://revbmw.wordpress.com/2014/04/30/discerning-the-body/
Today?  Jesus lives and walks among us with the same heart full of love and compassion. Pope Francis has repeated, and in audiences asked those present to repeat with him, “God’s mercy has no limit” … no limit! Jesus is risen in his people, in his “church.”  He lives there, here, in and through us. We, today, are called to live this “mystery.”  (You know that in Greek the word refers to something profound that is profound and hidden but open to discovery.) We, who are the church, the assembly of God’s people, are called also to descend into hell, to go to the encounter of those who live there (or to that part of us that lives there). God’s mercy knows no limit. We are called, like Jesus, to gather them up out of hell, to walk with them as they journey out of hell.
In my way of understanding Christianity, we journey toward that utopic moment when there is no more hell because all those who were there have left, they have left because they found brothers and sisters who walked with them out of hell.
Today I want to salute all those health workers, social workers, psychologists, doctors, parents, family members, teachers, pastors, nuns, volunteers and … friends… who dedicate their lives to just this.  
Some job!


[1] “The Three Days of Pascha,” Assembly, Volume 18:1, Notre Dame Center for Liturgy, Notre Dame Indiana,
[2] Ibid.

No comments:

Post a Comment