And a Small Candle Will Be Lit
At sundown on Saturday evening during the darkest night ever known on earth
As I write this, the procession of the recumbent Christ passes through the streets of the town that has welcomed me every summer, over in the northwest of Spain. It is the procession of the Holy Burial. The Divine Offices of Good Friday have already been held, the Blessed Sacrament has been consumed, and in the churches of the Christian universe the tabernacles are empty; with their open doors, warm light, the recollection of praying orphans.
I am always overcome by a deep melancholy, the pain of orphanhood, after the celebration of the Passion of the Lord. For the rest of the afternoon and all of Saturday, the death of God, Jesus is not in the varieties of bread and wine in earth’s tabernacles. We remember, or rather, we recreate or repeat, that bewilderment felt by apostles and disciples when after so many promises and prophecies the hour of truth came, and Christ died on the cross, died as a man, died and was buried, and then there was silence on earth, and only a tiny space was left for that which today we call faith.
The Scriptures imply that the apostles were scared to death. No wonder. With their leader dead, they would be next. And they knew not whether their blood would run before that strange Resurrection of which Jesus spoke to them, but of which they understood almost nothing. Really, they believed in their Friend, but it was an act of love, not of understanding.
I like to pretend to be brave and think that I would remain watching over the door of the tomb, knees to the ground, and my forehead resting on that great slab that sealed it, watching over the Friend. But the truth is that bravery is an intermittent virtue in my history, so I would most likely have hidden under the robes of the stoutest apostle, always with a window nearby in case the Romans came to turn me into mortadella for supper.
Be that as it may, the holy Sabbath is the day of God’s silence. The hour of man’s truth. Believing, loving, and following Christ, even in the midst of persecutions, may be easy when one is watching the Master perform miracles here and there, but it becomes an uphill struggle when his voice is silenced, after hours of cruel torment, and his body is laid out and shrouded.
See Also:
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