Today is Black Saturday,  (in Latin, Sabbatum Sanctum), the ‘day of the entombed Christ’, is the Lord’s day of rest, for on that day Christ’s body lay in His tomb.

Ideally, Holy Saturday should be the quietest day of the year. It is a day of suspense between two worlds, that of darkness, sin and death, and that of the Resurrection and the restoration of the Light of the World.

Tonight we’ll be celebrating the night vigil of Easter that signifies Christ’s passage from the dead to the living by the liturgy. This begins in darkness (sin, death) and is enlightened by the fire and the candle representing Lumen Christi — the Light of Christ — just as the Church, the Mystical Body of Christ, the community of believers, is led from spiritual darkness to the light of His truth. Christ’s baptism, which our own baptism imitates, is represented during the liturgy by the blessing of the water of baptism by immersing (“burying”) the candle representing His Body into the font.

It is with this premise that we’ve arrived at today’s Holy Saturday reflection. Continue reading →