Holy Saturday Reflections

I've been meaning to blog all week.  Unfortunately, that didn't happen.  But, today is as good a day as any, plus it is my mom's birthday (shout out!).

Here's what I've been thinking about today...perhaps this random spattering of thoughts will provoke some of your own:

• To me, Holy Saturday is one of the weirdest days of the year.  Just yesterday we found ourselves at stations of the cross, proclaiming the passion narrative and venerating the wood of the cross.  It was a day of death.  Today is a day of expectant waiting.  It is not unlike Advent.  In both cases, we are awaiting something - the infant child, and the resurrected Lord - and we, thanks to our being born after the Christian Fact happen to know what comes next (liturgically).  I think it is important to not wait with preconception, but with an expectant and hopeful heart.  When my 2nd daughter was born, I sort of new what to expect, yet the newness of life enfleshed before my eyes brought about a great sense of surprise and awe.  In a mysterious way, this same thing happens at each Mass - and in a heightened way at Christmas and Easter, when expectation is especially high.  This will be the case tonight as that Easter candle makes its way into the dark church - when that Easter light fills the darkness of our hard hearts and fills us with surprise and awe. 
• I often wonder what sort of disappointment the Apostles must have felt on this day nearly 2000 years ago.  Disappointment in themselves and their fearful flight from the cross and their friend.  Disappointment in the "failed" Messiah.
• These Apostles must have felt that "God is dead" in a way that Nietzsche could never express.  

I wish I could try to type out a bit more, but we've got to get the children ready for the Easter Vigil...should be an interesting experience!