April 7, 2007 by djackson.

Now in the place where He was crucified there was a garden, and in the garden a new tomb in which no one had yet been laid. Therefore because of the Jewish day of preparation, since the tomb was nearby, they laid Jesus there. - John 19.41-42

Holy Saturday doesn’t seem to count.  We are in the time that the ancient church designates as the Triduum, literally “the three days.”  These days are Maundy Thursday, Good Friday, and Easter Sunday.  Today, literally, is not counted. 

But the fact that the day is uncounted does not in fact mean that it does not count.  Like a quarter-rest in a musical score, this day shapes the others, gives form by its absence to what is present.  Listen, for a moment, to the silence of Holy Saturday.  What structure does this rest give to the three-note melody that surrounds it?

John tells us of the hasty funeral conducted by Joseph of Arimathea, assisted by Nichodemus, burial rites “done but greenly/And in hugger-mugger to inter him.”  Luke adds that the women spent their day preparing spices in order to come on Sunday and do the job right.  The Gospel tells us that all of this was done with one eye on their wrist watches because Sabbath custom dictated that there be no burials on the seventh day. 

Note, then, that everyone caught in this crushing juggernaut of grief fell back on routine, on the religious and social customs which ran like railroad tracks across their worlds.  Sometimes it is the very mindless actions of tradition and taboo which save us, or at least preserve us until salvation comes.  As I said, we call this time the Triduum.  Note how close that term sounds to some other words we use, always, I believe, in a negative sense; words like “tedium,” and “trivial.”  Yet it was in the returning to these familiar standards, in the rest of routine, that they sought and found some measure of comfort:  something for the hands to do which beguiled the grieving heart without demanding much of the stunned mind.

Frank Miller, in his weird novel A Canticle for Leibowitz, imagines a future blasted by nuclear war.  In a novel that begins after one holocaust and extends into the next and spans centuries in between, the one constant the author proposes is a clutch of Catholic monks in a desert fastness copying manuscripts and keeping the liturgy of the hours.  Miller explains,

In a dark sea of centuries wherein nothing seemed to flow, a lifetime was only a brief eddy, even for the man who lived it.  There was a tedium of repeated days and repeated seasons; then there were aches and pains, finally Extreme Unction, and a moment of blackness at the end - or at the beginning, rather.  For then the small shivering soul who had endured the tedium, endured it badly or well, would find itself in a place of light, find itself absorbed in the burning gaze of infinitely compassionate eyes as it stood before the Just one. . . .And only for that moment had the tedium of years existed.

The tedium of their trivial tasks during the timeless day amids the Triduum reminded the women that life was larger than their own lives.  If there was no future (they had no reason to believe then that there was!) there was still the past, and that gave them at least duty, if it gave them no hope.  On this day amidst the days, this quarter-rest in the melody of redemption, let us be quietly busy about the tasks of our days.  Such faithfulness reminds us that our individual selves do not judge the meaningfulness of life; rather, our selves find meaning in life’s larger rhythms.  And such steady service keeps us going until life eternal breaks once again into our isolated lives.

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April 7, 2007 by djackson.

Posted in General | No Comments »