Holy Saturday

What must it have felt like for the disciples on Holy Saturday? Their leader, supposed savior, and best friend was not only dead, but had been violently and publicly executed by the state, a practice still carried out today through the modern death penalty. Somewhere in the back of their minds they knew that the resurrection was on the near horizon. However, overwhelmed by their trauma, this knowledge was not only forgotten, but completely incomprehensible.

Mary and the disciples, paralyzed and grief-stricken, waited.

In the midst of oppression or the aftermath of violence, we long for liberation and transformation. These times of “in-between” can be utterly excruciating. Many times we ask ourselves, “Where is God in this?”

Where was Jesus on Holy Saturday? True, he was no longer on earth with the disciples and not yet in heaven either. Each week, at Mass, we are reminded that on this day “he descended into Hell.” How often I speed past this part of the story, and yet how critical it is! Jesus immersed himself deeper into the suffering of the human soul than he ever experienced on earth. He went to the ultimate margin to be with those sentenced to the prison of isolation, separated from God and community.

It was from this place of suffering that Jesus rose. With him, he freed souls in captivity to know eternal life, joy, and loving relationship. His resurrection would not have been fulfilled without this radical act of solidarity.

Fr. David Kelly, a restorative justice facilitator in Chicago, talks about peacemaking circles as spaces where we honor one another’s dignity, live our shared woundedness, and journey together to find healing as a community.

We create these sacred spaces because Jesus did it for us, that we may know and imitate the ultimate vision of healing, reconciliation, and wholeness. But in order to get there, we cannot skip over the deep, difficult, and necessary work of encountering our mutual woundedness.

As believers in the risen Christ, we know all things are possible with God’s grace, mercy, and justice.  In our call to charity and justice, may we live as an Easter people who encounter woundedness and embrace the transformative power of in-between moments, like Holy Saturday.

Caitlin Morneau is Director of Restorative Justice at Catholic Mobilizing Network in Washington, DC - the national organization working to end the death penalty and promote restorative justice through education, advocacy, and prayer. She is also an alumni of Catholic Charities Project SERVE in Baltimore.

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