Notes on the Holy Saturday Liturgy

Oh, most neglected Office of Holy Saturday! Weird break between Good Friday and Easter Vigil, when we've all tired of prayer...

OK. Forgive my humor. I understand completely why Holy Saturday pretty much has been neglected (at least in the West) through most of Christian history. The clergy need a break. The sanctuary needs to prepared for joy. Sweet-smelling flowers need to be placed. The organist needs to practice. The choir needs to practice. Everyone needs to get ready. Panic ensues. Wouldn't it be nice if there were a brief 20 minute lay-led liturgy to get us settled into these preparations and ground us once more in the work of the Lord? So I include these suggestions for modifications of the Holy Saturday liturgy as it is written in the 1979 Book of Common Prayer. > Note also we're not the only ones who experience Holy Saturday fatigue . (And the Orthodox liturgy is so awesome.)

First, while the Ambrosian Missal has a special liturgy of the Word for this reason, I see good reason to put the Holy Saturday liturgy into the Daily Office framework, just make it a little different. Imagine that the living and created world is without the Word who animates all being. In the unseen realm of Sheol, things are happening, but in ordinary creation, things have become topsy-turvy. And thus the Opening Sentence should be:

"If I say, 'Surely the darkness will cover me, and the light around me turn to night', darkness is not dark to thee, O Lord; the night is as bright as the day; darkness and light to thee are both alike."

Three years ago, I was asked to say Morning Prayer on Holy Saturday. I thought, "What should the Opening Sentence be?" And this came to me. Then a few months later, I noticed this was one of the Opening Sentences for Evening Prayer!

Invitatory Psalm? I recommend this be out of the ordinary, too. At Evening Prayer in the Eastern Orthodox tradition, the office begins with the priest saying Psalm 104 before the closed doors of the tabernacle. In this tradition, Psalm 104 is the Adamic hymn of thanksgiving to God (probably after the expulsion from the Garden). It is a hymn of joy in the wonders of God's creation and their benefits for us. As an Evening Invitatory Psalm, its use again reinforces the topsy-turvy nature of this day. As the Adamic song of thanksgiving, it might have been a likely greeting when Adam imprisoned in Sheol saw the Lord among the dead. (If Athanasius is correct, Jesus and Adam would have looked very much alike I presume or might have seen each other in Eden.)

The Psalter. The BCP says 130. I prefer 139, which proclaims the presence of the Lord in the grave.

The readings. I use two: The OT is Job 14:1-14 in the BCP. I think verse 15 completes the thought, "You would summon me, and I would answer: you would long to see the creature you have made." The NT suggested by the BCP is 1 Peter 4:1-8. I don't agree. I find this part of 1 Peter a little too much about uplifting ourselves above our non-Christian fellow creatures. The ancient Epistle for the day is 1 Peter 3:17-22. I didn't know this but chose to read it today because of how much I dislike the beginning of chapter 4. One of the interesting parts of 3:17-22 is the connection of the symbolism of Baptism to the flood and to Jesus' oblation on the cross, which I find appropriately edifying in anticipation of Easter Vigil. But this passage is also meaningful in that it talks about those to whom Jesus preached. We often think of the Harrowing of Hell in terms of the liberation of Adam and Eve and the prophets (though some of them entered Paradise in the body). Peter writes of the wicked and disobedient who were drowned in the flood being evangelized by Christ. This is a beautiful reversal of Jewish tradition, for it says in the Mishnah , possible in the tractate on Pesach, "the generation of the Flood and the generation of the Wilderness have no portion in the world to come." Yet we hear that Jesus came especially to the dead to give these a portion in the world to come.

The Prayers:
Never know what to do. Possibly, "In the midst of life, we are in death (p. 484)" to replace the versicles and the responses. Its use is suggested by the BCP.

Holy Saturday needs a hymn. I sang Pange Lingua , because I hadn't yet. The Orthodox apparently sing, "All mortal flesh keep silence" especially on this day. Sounds good to me.

So those are my thoughts.

I also had a weird Good Friday thought. Mark 15:37 says of Jesus, "ὁ δὲ Ἰησοῦς ἀφεὶς φωνὴν μεγάλην ἐξέπνευσεν." That is, "And then Jesus with a great cry sent forth his spirit". Great cry and sent forth his spirit are a chiasmus: "sent cry great spirit." So Mark means the sending forth of the spirit and the "great cry" to be intimately connected. I didn't think of this until I was reading a Latin anthem at Tenebrae last night, but Psalm 104:30 is ,"ἐξαποστελεῖς τὸ πνεῦμά σου καὶ κτισθήσονται καὶ ἀνακαινιεῖς τὸ πρόσωπον τῆς γῆς" in the Septuagint. "You send forth your spirit and they are created and so you renew the life of the world." It's effectively the same Greek, except that the ἐξ has jumped from send to spirit. I don't know enough Greek to know if putting the preposition on the noun in this case is unusual or significant, but it does suggest that Mark's Gospel puts the Word on the Cross, "sending forth his spirit with a cry," just like God in creation.

One last note: Athanasius and whomever he was quoting in his treatise on the Psalms insist Psalm 66 is about the Resurrection. as if it were obvious. I don't see it. Can anyone help me?