Tumgik
#holy saturday
fiddler-sticks · 1 year
Text
Tumblr media
Time for the busiest but most fun week of my life lol
696 notes · View notes
dramoor · 1 year
Photo
Tumblr media
“For as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of a huge fish, so the Son of Man will be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth.”
~Matthew 12:40
(Art by Gustave Dore)
316 notes · View notes
helloparkerrose · 1 year
Photo
Tumblr media
234 notes · View notes
ah-bright-wings · 1 year
Text
The Garden - A Holy Saturday Story
A night wind rustles through the garden. Acacius shifts his feet, eyes following the bounce of a tree branch, though no night creature disturbs it. The sky is empty of clouds, leaving the moon silver and naked. The faint blush of dawn touches the horizon. Acacius feels his back touch the stone behind him and he straightens himself.
“Have you noticed,” he says sideways to Longinus—who alone remains awake while the other two in their guard sleep, rotations completed—“that you can’t hear any insects?”
Longinus doesn’t respond. When Acacius turns his head, he sees the man’s face is set, eyes unfocused. He’s on his back, one hand behind his head, the other on his belly, calloused fingers curled. His thumb taps an unsteady rhythm.
“Longinus,” Acacius says, and the man finally looks over, though for a moment only.
“Hercules died,” he says.
“…Hercules.”
“He was a demigod. He died. So, the sons of gods can die.”
Acacius’ grip tightens on his spear. “You’re speaking of the Nazarene.”
“Who else could I speak of?”
It’s not a biting retort, but an earnest one. Longinus has not spoken since they left Golgotha. Now, his voice is quiet, gruff. Uneasy. The brush rustles, and Acacius’ head snaps towards it. Longinus doesn’t flinch. His eyes remain fixed upwards.
“Are his followers really stupid enough to try stealing the body?” Acacius asks when he’s certain there’s no one in the garden.
“Does their god have sons?” Longinus doesn’t seem to have heard the question. Or, he’s heard and ignored it, continuing his own thoughts. “He must. All gods do. His mother must be a great woman.”
“He’s not a demigod,” Acacius says, a sigh held behind his teeth. “And we saw his mother. She was plain. So was he. Just a man.”
“He wasn’t just a man.”
“Why not?”
Longinus’ thumb taps on the curve of his bottom rib. “You saw what I did.”
“I saw a man die on a cross.”
“And the earth shake at his death.”
“Earthquakes happen.”
“Not like this.”
“If you are so certain,” Acacius says, “perhaps you should make an offering to appease his father. The lightning could strike you any moment now. Oh yes, look, here it comes.” He lifts a hand to the clear sky above. 
Longinus’ jaw shifts. He pushes himself up on his elbows so he can properly see his fellow legionnaire. There is still blood on his tunic, spattered against him by the wind when he thrust his spear through flesh. “Be careful what you mock.”
“I mock nothing. I mock no one. Is their god so powerful? Hm? He does nothing for them while Rome rules. He sends only rain while his ‘son’ hangs on a cross.” Acacius snorts and readjusts his stance. “They have one god, and he has forgotten them.”
“You’re a fool,” Longinus tells him. “Even Petronius recognized him for what he was.”
“The centurion is superstitious.”
“And you aren’t?”
“We did our duty.” Acacius is growing uneasy. Something rustles again in the brush. “So he was unusual. So, then, what? It changes nothing.”
“He prayed for our forgiveness.”
“Then he was sentimental.”
Longinus mutters a crude retort and lies down again. Acacius smiles thinly. The Nazarene had disturbed him, with his piercing eyes and silence under their whip, though he won’t admit it. The man’s eyes had been open when they pulled him down from the cross. Acacius had shut them to hide from them. 
“If he truly was the son of a god,” Acacius says, after the silence has stretched out like a shadow and grown heavy, “then we’d be the ones who killed him.”
“Yes,” Longinus says quietly. 
There is a warm wind stirring the trees like a breath. The earth is otherwise still around them. For hours, it has been still, as if creation is holding its breath, and just now, it has let it out again, sending puffs against Acacius’ skin and raising the soft hairs. The other two guards stir in their sleep. Longinus sits suddenly upright.
“Something is here,” he says, hand on his sword. He’s up before his words are out, kicking the others so they wake. The dawn makes itself known. The wind rises quickly. Clear is the sky, but the moon trembles as if afraid, hiding its face. A shaking begins, deeper than stone, making the trees shudder and groan, causing the roots to untwist themselves from the ground. Caius, who had laid his head on the Nazarene’s tunic, which he had won, has gone pale. He clings to his sword and shouts into the wind. His words are lost.
A man—no, it is not a man, though it is dressed in the white robes of one—comes across the grass, silent in its steps. When Acacius looks at it, terror seizes him. It’s a flash of terror, bright and terrible, illuminating all within himself that he has tried to hide. This is death! he thinks. This is death! His legs are limp beneath him. His face is crushed against the ground.
The man who is not a man places its hand on the stone. The wax seal melts away. Though the soldiers had strained themselves closing the tomb, the stone is pushed away with one hand, as easily as a boy might pick up a pebble and toss it away. It lands on its side, though it makes no sound. The being sits on it.
When Acacius comes to his right mind again, he is on his belly. His cheek is damp with dew. With his head turned sideways, he can see, two paces from him, Longinus, who is prostrate on his belly also, arms bent at the elbows so that his hands cover his head. He is shaking. Acacius hears him speaking, though it is more a babble than intelligible speech, the words forced from his lungs as he weeps.
Mercy, Acacius realizes. He begs for mercy.
There is still a terror in his own self when he raises his head to see the tomb. The being is gone. The tomb is open, stone cast aside, seal destroyed. Slowly, Acacius turns his head from side to side. The garden has come alive. In the new light, green has unfurled itself splendidly, trees putting forth their fruits and flowers like offerings so their fragrance fills the air. He sees fruit he does not know, nor has ever tasted. In the dipped branch of an olive tree, a grey dove sits.
His sword is gone. When did he drop it? He lifts himself and looks for the others, who are sprawled on the ground like dead men, though they breathe. He should check them. He should look for wounds. But something draws him towards the tomb, until he’s at the dark mouth of it, leaving the others behind, breathing in the cool, damp air. 
The tomb is empty.
“My gods,” he whispers, and he is terrified. He takes a step back, then another, turning from the empty tomb and the white linen cloths folded neatly where the body should be. His sandal catches on a root. He sprawls. The ground strips the skin from his knees. Blood rolls down his right calf as he limps forward.
Father, forgive them, had said the Nazarene, with a tongue swollen from thirst. 
“Run,” he tells Longinus hoarsely, grabbing the back of his tunic and hauling him upright. The others rise too. Their swords are abandoned. The Nazarene’s red garment lies crumpled on the ground. In the tomb, the graveclothes are folded. 
Father, forgive them, the man had prayed.
They know not what they do.
Acacius falls again, knocking the breath from himself. No one stops. The other three run ahead, fleeing the emptiness of the tomb, and though he gasps after them, they do not hear. 
There is no strength left in his limbs. As if gripped by fever, he trembles. Every story he has heard of the wrath of the gods comes to him here, crouched in the dust, made as low as beasts, while some great and holy fear passes over him. He covers his head as Longinus had done and begs for mercy.
Son of a god I do not know, he pleads, have mercy on me. Have mercy on me.
A hand touches his shoulder. 
Peace, says a voice he has heard before. Be still.
Immediately, the trembling leaves him. The terror that had overshadowed him passes on, leaving him be, and he is alone in the dust, alone, breathing. A dove coos. When he opens his eyes, he sees it on the path ahead, feathers ruffling. His eyes follow it when it takes flight.
The tomb is empty. The seal is broken, and the Nazarene is gone. At last, the world has thrown off its silence, and it sings around him, crying out while he stands mute. For a moment, he is still, seeking the source of their song. From where does it come? He cannot discern it. He abandons the stillness and presses on.
It is only when he rejoins the others that he finds his skinned knees made whole.
229 notes · View notes
The garden is quiet, but gardens are always quiet.
But tonight even the bluebirds hold their breath,
and the butterflies pause their flight.
The silence and stillness are pregnant
with the tremulous hope of new life.
129 notes · View notes
dimsilver · 1 year
Text
Tumblr media
97 notes · View notes
hiddenromania · 1 year
Text
Tumblr media
This Romanian sweet bread derives its name from the Latin word for Easter. With its round shape, golden crust, and yellow center, Pască is said to resemble the Sun and symbolize the rebirth of nature in springtime. It is baked only for Easter and usually on Saturday of the Holy Week.
The bread is prepared with yeasted dough that is usually flavored with vanilla and citrus juice and holds a delectable filling made with a combination of fresh urdă whey cheese, eggs, sour cream, sugar, and raisins.
According to Christian tradition, freshly-baked pască (on Saturday) should be taken to church on Easter Sunday for the custom of blessing food in hopes of future abundance and prosperity.
133 notes · View notes
lionofchaeronea · 1 year
Text
An Epigram for Holy Saturday
Anthologia Palatina I.54 (author unknown) O suffering, o cross, blood that drives away sufferings, Wash all the wickedness from my soul.
ὦ πάθος, ὦ σταυρός, παθέων ἐλατήριον αἷμα,      πλῦνον ἐμῆς ψυχῆς πᾶσαν ἀτασθαλίην.
Tumblr media
Blood of the Redeemer, Bartolomeo Passarotti (1529-1592)
70 notes · View notes
orthodoxadventure · 5 months
Text
Tumblr media
Holy and Great Saturday. Christ surrounded by angelic forces. A Christ shroud of the Monastery of the Transfiguration of the Lord, Meteora, Greece. 14th century. [OrthoChristian.com]
19 notes · View notes
Text
This is the night, when once you led our forebears, Israel's children, from slavery in Egypt and made them pass dry-shod through the Red Sea.
This is the night that with a pillar of fire banished the darkness of sin.
This is the night that even now, throughout the world, sets Christian believers apart from worldly vices and from the gloom of sin, leading them to grace and joining them to his holy ones.
-- Exultet, USCCB
77 notes · View notes
a-queer-seminarian · 1 year
Text
A poem for Holy Saturday, when we remember that for a short while, God lay dead in a tomb. Let us make space for hopelessness and grief to be felt.
You can also read this poem here.
ID: a grayscale video of a white genderqueer person with short hair reading a poem they wrote.
62 notes · View notes
andrewuttaro · 3 days
Text
The Stations you don't know
Tumblr media
Lost to us by time or place can be some of the most interesting devotional treasures. As a teenager I was made aware of the Stations of the Cross for the first time though I cannot recall praying them with any regularity until well into my twenties. Now as I approach my thirtieth birthday, I am a little embarrassed to admit that rarely do two to three weeks go by when I don’t pray the Stations of the Cross. I am talking about outside the season of Lent when they are traditionally prayed socially: I can’t get enough of them! Perhaps it’s that awkward preteen in me who liked pop punk music expressing himself anew.
To return to humility: I think this devotion of mine was greatly assisted by a small pamphlet called “Cross Wise: A Pocket Way of the Cross”. This reading material contains all the Station of the Cross with a brief reflection and three interjecting prayers along the way. This version of the traditional “Via Crucis” also provides the traditional prayer before each station:
“We adore you, O Christ, and we praise you, because by your Holy Cross you have redeemed the World.”
As well as the traditional prayer after each station:
“Father, not my Will but yours be done.”
Don’t ask me how I first found this pamphlet. As best I can ascertain it has a copyright year of 1989 and the official Catholic Church seal of approval in latin known as the “Imprimatur” administered by the Monsignor Maurice Byrne of the Archdiocese of St. Louis. I discovered a stock of these pamphlets in the Parish of my Youth during a recent visit. Perhaps this was where I first found this devotional tool?
The Stations of the Cross are the ultimate devotion of humility if you ask me. They are also uplifting in a way that I can’t quite put into words, so I won’t be attempting to here. They are a school in meditation because they require you to open your heart to what God might be telling you, and then go deeper. Without such an open heart these Stations can seem plainly morbid. We’re talking about Jesus Christ’s death here so that comes with the territory to a degree.
However, the very nature of devotion itself is also instructive with this. When we open our heart to the divine unexpected, not seeking to conquer an idea with our mind’s comprehension as we moderns so eagerly prefer to do, then these Stations become the very epicenter of Christ’s saving work. The charming tradition of adding a fifteenth station for the Resurrection really completes that arc.
But chances are if you’re reading this you already have some passing familiarity with the Stations of the Cross. You’re reading this far for the Stations you didn’t know as the clickbait title so successfully lured you! You want something different. Well this year I have uncovered two sets of other “Stations” related to Holy Week that may intrigue you or even enter into your devotional practice in some way.
Last Year was my first Holy Week back in the city of my birth: Rochester, New York. My wife and I are attending her childhood Parish, so we get a lot more Church time with my in-laws. Hold your jokes, this is truly a blessing. For two years straight we have participated in a Christmas pageant I can only describe as adorable.
Last year on Holy Thursday my father-in-law and I attempted to visit other Churches displaying the Blessed Sacrament for Adoration. It is an old tradition on that particular night to travel to Seven Churches where the Blessed Sacrament is so adored. Holy Thursday matters so much for us Catholics because its when we commemorate the Last Supper and, ergo, the institution of the Sacrament of Communion (the Blessed Sacrament) by Jesus Christ. If there is any day of the whole Church year for Adoration of the Sacrament, it’s the night of Holy Thursday.
Indeed, the Mass of Holy Thursday doesn’t end. It is merely the beginning of the shortest liturgical season on the Catholic calendar: Triduum. Technically Holy Thursday begins one long liturgy that doesn’t end until Easter Vigil the following Saturday. The Seven Churches Visitation is in some respect then the way some choose to honor this sacred moment as Good Friday beckons in the morning. I don’t know where this tradition originates from, but I faintly remember a retreat starting that night in my Youth Group back in High School. We called it “Passion Immersion”.
I said my father-in-law and I attempted to visit other Churches that night because we failed to do so. We only looked at the three Churches of our Parish and discovered there was no such Adoration taking place. This year I decided to prepare and found a dozen Churches within a short driving distance that we will venture out to come Thursday night. Along the way of this research, I discovered the Stations these Seven Visitations are supposed to represent: the Seven Movements of Jesus between the end of the Last Supper and the Crucifixion. Here they are:
Jesus prays in the Garden of Gethsemane.
Jesus arrested, bound, and taken before Annas.
Jesus taken before the High Priest, Caiaphas.
Jesus taken before Pontius Pilate the first time.
Jesus taken before Herod.
Jesus taken before Pontius Pilate the second time.
Jesus is given his Crown of Thorns and condemned to Crucifixion.
In a way, these are the Seven Stations preceding the Stations of the Cross. That’s a total of 21 stations, 22 if you count the Resurrection! Color me positively bedazzled upon learning this. You might also notice there is a lot of Jesus being paraded around in this sequence, twice getting thrown in front of Pontius Pilate who found the whole experience distressing at worse and bothersome at best.
That parading around lends itself to Adoration of the Blessed Sacrament. We Catholics believe that little consecrated host is Jesus after all so parading him out on Holy Thursday in the interim before Good Friday feels appropriate with these Stations. Adding on the physical act of traveling to Seven different Churches really makes it feel like a pilgrimage, not unlike how the 14 Stations of the Cross developed from pilgrimages to the Holy Land where it actually happened.
But before we wrap this up, I have a parting gift for you: yet more Stations I was not aware of before this trip around the Liturgical calendar! These Seven Stations, we’ll say four because you’re probably familiar with at least three of these, are what each Day of Holy Week might be focused on in one’s devotional practice:
Palm Sunday: Jesus Triumphant entry into Jerusalem.
Holy Monday: Judas scorns Mary of Bethany for anointing Jesus’ feet.
Holy Tuesday: Jesus announces the impending betrayal of one of the twelve and Peter’s denial of him later.
Holy Wednesday: Jesus confirms Judas’ betrayal.
Holy Thursday: The Last Supper when Jesus institutes Holy Communion and the Priesthood.
Good Friday: The Passion and Death of Jesus Christ.
Holy Saturday: Jesus harrows Hell and defeats death.
Easter: the Resurrection.
I will assume Palm Sunday, Holy Thursday, Good Friday, and Easter are probably not unfamiliar to you. These aren’t Stations as much as they are devotions for each day since Holy Tuesday and Holy Wednesday’s devotions occurred on Holy Thursday with the Last Supper. Nonetheless, there is spiritual depth here I discovered this year.
Judas taking issue with expensive nard being used to anoint Jesus’ feet instead of being sold to support the ministry is a bit of foreshadowing if you will. But consider how Jesus’ response, a call for Judas and the others to treasure him while he is still with them, speaks to a right reverence we so desperately need nowadays. We often miss the true holiness of an event or thing because we are assessing bare value and not the deeper blessing at work. This is not a bad way to re-evaluate our own personal relationship with Jesus.
Jesus announcing his betrayal in the middle of the meal sending his Apostles into a drama seems unhelpful. Yet Jesus is calling all his Apostles therein to a more sincere self-knowledge as they are about to lose him. That’s not to mention they would all be thinking Jesus knew who the betrayer was and included him nonetheless. Frankly, I can’t help but think of contentious family meals around the holidays at this juncture. Jesus shares a meal with his betrayer, can we not share a meal with those who betray our worldviews?
Peter, our favorite overzealous hothead, pledging his loyalty to Jesus in this panic only to be told he would in fact deny Jesus three times, is flatly poetic. Nobody is above betraying their most intimate relationships and values. We all betray Jesus and we all might be great leaders and advocates for his Gospel nonetheless!
Jesus confirming Judas’ betrayal is difficult for me to process to be honest. This likely refers to Matthew 26:25 when Jesus, once again in the midst of the panic he has just induced, answers Judas’ insistence he is not the betrayer by responding: “You have said so.” What are we to make of that cryptic, non-committal response? Here’s a clue: Jesus will later respond to Pontius Pilate with a very similar retort: “You say so” (Matthew 27:11). This is after Pilate asks Jesus if he is King of the Jews in a clear attempt to trap him in bogus charges against the Roman State.
It’s as if the Gospel is telling us that when we are insistent on our bad faith assertions, if not outright lies, we force Jesus into something that some theologians will tell you Jesus is not even capable of due to his divine nature: biting sarcasm. When we lie to Jesus we wound the relationship. We sin. Coming from Jesus I cannot imagine how sarcasm would not rend the heart asunder.
Lastly, skipping ahead to Holy Saturday we find Jesus’ harrowing Hell itself between Good Friday and Easter. Don’t think of this as some kind of battle, he’s God and the fight was already won on the Cross, think of this as Jesus leaving no sheep behind. Before his saving act there was a waiting room for the righteous. Heaven wasn’t open quite yet, but there were some folks who were worthy of entering nonetheless. This harrowing of Hell is Jesus going into the most miserable of all waiting rooms and retrieving his beloved sheep.
And with that we arrive at Easter, the greatest celebration Christianity has to offer. If I haven’t bored you to death with journaling my favorite devotions or sermonizing obscure Holy Week devotions, then I hope I have given you some spiritual food for this special week we find ourselves in. It’s amazing what we discover can spiritual feed us if we open our hearts to be filled with something anew.
Jesus awaits there for us.
6 notes · View notes
orthodoxsoul · 11 months
Text
Tumblr media
I didn't get a chance to post this on Holy Saturday, but I keep thinking about and giggling so I'm posting it now
31 notes · View notes
dramoor · 1 year
Photo
Tumblr media
“I [Christ] who am Life itself am now one with you.” ~St. Epiphanios, from his ancient homily for Holy Saturday
(Photo © dramoor 2015 Cathedral of St. John the Baptist, Turin, Italy)
49 notes · View notes
septembersung · 1 year
Text
Ikon: The Harrowing of Hell Denise Levertov
Down through the tomb's inward arch He has shouldered out into Limbo to gather them, dazed, from dreamless slumber: the merciful dead, the prophets, the innocents just His own age and those unnumbered others waiting here unaware, in an endless void He is ending now, stooping to tug at their hands, to pull them from their sarcophagi, dazzled, almost unwilling. Didmas, neighbor in death, Golgotha dust still streaked on the dried sweat of his body no one had washed and anointed, is here, for sequence is not known in Limbo; the promise, given from cross to cross at noon, arches beyond sunset and dawn. All these He will swiftly lead to the Paradise road: they are safe. That done, there must take place that struggle no human presumes to picture: living, dying, descending to rescue the just from shadow, were lesser travails than this: to break through earth and stone of the faithless world back to the cold sepulchre, tearstained stifling shroud; to break from them back into breath and heartbeat, and walk the world again, closed into days and weeks again, wounds of His anguish open, and Spirit streaming through every cell of flesh so that if mortal sight could bear to perceive it, it would be seen His mortal flesh was lit from within, now, and aching for home. He must return, first, in Divine patience, and know hunger again, and give to humble friends the joy of giving Him food—fish and a honeycomb.
38 notes · View notes
portraitsofsaints · 1 year
Quote
Holy Saturday We give glory to You, Lord, who raised up Your cross to span the jaws of death…  We give glory to You who put on the body of a single mortal man & made it the source of life for every other mortal man.
St. Ephrem of Edessa
36 notes · View notes