Holy Week: Holy Saturday

Categories: hymns, parish-life, feast-days

Date: 09 April 2007 04:46:07

Holy Saturday was extremely moving for me this year: through the services of the Lamentations (held Friday night) and the Saturday morning Vesperal Liturgy, I do believe, thanks be to God, that I gained a greater understanding and appreciation of what Christ accomplished on that Saturday almost two-thousand years ago: God, in Christ, did indeed "rest" on that day; rested in Hades -- but, He has conquered Hades; conquered death -- for us and for our salvation. Thanks and praise be to God. And thank you to Joshua who linked to Fr Alexander Schmemann's A Liturgical Explanation for the Days of Holy Week: very good reading, and I was moved especially by his concluding words on Holy Saturday which, in addition to the services, opened my eyes to their beauty, and the theology and thought behind them:

It is probably here ... that the ultimate meaning of this "middle day" is made manifest. Christ arose from the dead, His Resurrection we will celebrate on Easter Day. This celebration, however, commemorates a unique event of the past, and anticipates a mystery of the future. It is already His Resurrection, but not yet ours. We will have to die, to accept the dying, the separation, the destruction. Our reality in this world, in the aeon, is the reality of the Great Saturday; this day is the real image of our human condition. We believe in the Resurrection, because Christ has risen from the dead. We expect the Resurrection. We know that Christ's death has annihilated the power of death, and death is no longer the hopeless, the ultimate end of everything... Baptized into His death, we partake already of His life that came out of the grave. We receive His Body and Blood which are the food of immortality. We have in ourselves the token, the anticipation of the eternal life... All our Christian existence is measured by these acts of communion to the life of the "new aeon" of the Kingdom... and yet we are here, and death is our inescapable share.

But this life between the Resurrection of Christ and the day of the common resurrection, is it not precisely the life in the Great Saturday? Is not expectation the basic and essential category of Christian experience? We wait in love, hope and faith. And this waiting for "the resurrection and the life of the world to come," this life which is "hid with Christ in God" (Colossians 3:3-4), this growth of expectation in love, in certitude; all this is our own "Great Saturday." Little by little, everything in this world becomes transparent to the light that comes from there, the "image of this world" passes by and this indestructible life with Christ becomes our supreme and ultimate value. Every year, on Great Saturday, after this morning service, we wait for the Easter night and the fulness of Paschal joy. We know that they are approaching -- and yet, how slow is this approach, how long is this day! But is not the wonderful quiet of Great Saturday the symbol of our very life in this world? Are we not always in the "middle day," waiting for the Pascha of Christ, preparing ourselves for the day without evening of His Kingdom?

The beautiful Lamentations service was very well-attended at our parish, with a number of visitors. The Lamention refrains were sung loudly by all, as we processed out and around the church with a decorated bier [ours is not quite as ornate, but beautiful and flower-laden nontheless]: each of the refrains comes after a verse from Psalm 119 (which is well-known in Orthodoxy as the Psalm chanted at funerals), most of the verses of which are chanted that night; here are some of the refrains:

(after v2)
How O Life can You die? In a grave how can You dwell?
The proud domain of death You destroy now,
And the dead of Hades You now make to rise.

(after v32)
Christ, the Life, tasting death;
Released mankind from Death,
And now grants Life to all.

(after v96)
Dirges at your tomb...goodly Joseph sings with Nicodemus;
Bringing praise to Christ Who by man was slain,
And in song with them are joined the Seraphim.

(after v103)
O my Son behold...Your well-loved Disciple and Your Mother;
And Your voice so sweet let us hear again.
So with plenteous tears His maiden Mother cried.

(at the beginning and end of the third set of Lamentations)
Every generation to Your grave comes bringing
Dear Christ its dirge of praises.

(after v133)
Women bringing spices came with loving forethought;
Your due myrrh to give You.

(after v171)
A dread and strange sight, O Word, that the Earth;
Does hide You

Each set of Lamentations (there are three) have the same melody for the all the Lamentations in that set so, once the choir sings the first one, all can join in thereafter: and join in our parish did. Very moving and very beautiful: as is the symbolism of re-entering the church by walking, ducking, underneath the bier held-aloft by parishioners.

The Vesperal Liturgy on Saturday morning [yes, Vespers in the morning: time does seem to turn upside-down in Lent!] contains a number of beautiful readings [fifteen OT readings are prescribed, but in practice three are generally read], psalms and hymns, including the Hymn of the Three Holy Children, with the congregation refrain, "Praise You the Lord, and exalt Him to all ages."; the glorious singing of St Paul's, "As many as have been baptised into Christ have put on Christ" at various points in the service; "Let all mortal flesh keep silence..." [slower and less words than the wondrous hymn perhaps known to many] as the Cherubic Hymn; and, of course, the receiving of the Body and Blood of Christ. The sense of joy is anticipated: the clergy have bright vestments and the singing moves from the slow melodies of Great Lent to being that little bit quicker -- Pascha is almost here.