Holy Saturday: Hope in the Time of Coronatide
Theodore in Prayer, photo by David Russell Mosley
As Lent is, in one sense, over, and we wait here on Holy Saturday, while Christ descends to Hell and has not yet risen, I want to share with you a story.
A few weeks ago, I took my twin sons on a walk in our local cemetery. It was wonderful. The cemetery was peaceful, sunny, and largely empy, excepting the occupants. On the edge is a small pond. Really its almost more of a lock, directing the water of a stream pooed on the edge of a small woodland area. The light of the sun made dappled patterns along the ground.
I had tried to insist the boys be respectful in the cemetery, but here, in this Faërie marshalnd, I let them run. Moss covered stones rose gently from the ground; ice still covered most of the pond. They were happy to be out and momentarily free.
The contrast was not lost on me; all this life, budding trees, creeping moss, my half-elven children, and across from the bench where I sat for maoment, the graves of so many who had gone before. The first time I brought my boys to the cemetery, they christened it the burial garden. This moved me at the time. Now, in Lent, during a pandemic, when Saturn seems to have come into full reign, this is a beautiful truth discovered by my sons.
Winter ought to be over, but here in New Hampshire, it still lingers, like the ice on the pond. Yet we know Sping is coming. So too, many of us face a seemingly unending Lent, especially as we face an Easter without Mass. And yet, Easter will come. Christ will return. No vernal snow can halt the coming of Spring. No pandemic can stop the coming of Christ.
As we began to leave, my son, Theodore, went up to a tombstone, knelt down, did the sign of the cross, and prayed a Hail Mary. The first tombstone he stopped by simply said Mother. Edwyn soon followed suit, though his prayers were simpler. He started reverently saying Amen to every tombstone we passed. Theodore, sometimes to the chagrin of his brother, continued to stop at a variety of tombstones, to kneel and pray. Edwyn said a few hurried, Amens, trying to keep us moving.
At one gravesite, where the stones were in the ground, facing up, and sitting in a semi-circle, Theodore did something different. He collected several pinecones and began arranging them, one for each tombstone, perpendicular to it. I was, of course, moved by all of this. I pulled out the rosary beads I had been carrying with me and began to finger them, praying quietly. Here, my children showed this strange mix of some kind of nature magic with the pine cones and their devout, Catholic prayers.
Now, Christ’s body is in the tomb, and his soul has descended into to Hell. There he proclaims the Good News and leads the righteous out. Meanwhile, we wait. Spring begins to show her vernal head as flowers begin to pop up, trees begin to bud, and the land begins to warm. For us in the Northern Hemisphere, it is as though creation itself must first be resurrected from the death of Winter, before it can accept the risen Christ.
And I take hope in this. Even as I think about the fact that life will never be the same. This new pandemic has changed how we live. But it has not changed the coming of Christ anymore than it can change the coming of Spring. Christ will rise tomorrow, even as we weep today. The sun will warm the ground, even as the last vestiges of snow fall like tears from eaves and leaves. This is our Holy Saturday.
