The Church waits in prayer and silence…
Christ pulls Adam and Eve from their graves; Jesus descends into Hell on Holy Saturday to liberate the righteous
On Holy Saturday the Church waits at the Lord’s tomb in prayer and fasting, meditating on his Passion and Death and on his descent into Hell and awaiting his Resurrection.
The Church abstains from the Sacrifice of the Mass, with the Sacred Altar left bare, until after the Solemn Vigil, that is, the night of the Resurrection, when the time comes for Paschal joys, the abundance of which overflows to occupy fifty days.
Holy Communion may only be given on this day as Viaticum.
Jesus must experience inwardly (without distancing himself from it) everything that alienated humanity in sin and anti-divine acts, so that he was literally made into sin (2 Col 5:21) for us. It is this enduring, forgiving and transforming love that is appropriately conferred upon us as an abiding memorial in the Sacrament of the Eucharist. It would not be what it is, though, if our dying was not also assumed into it and transformed in a feat of divine-human love. Through the perfect self-surrender of human nature in Christ’s death (which seizes hold of our dying and conveys it to perfection) the powers of love and of achievement in our nature become free- powers that will unfold in God’s eternity.
– Hans Urs von Balthasar, SJ
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