Holy Saturday | Saturday 8 April 2023

Welcome to this special Holy Saturday Examen.


Paul Zach sings, ‘He’s Gone’.


After the cross has been carried
After the weight is laid down
After the body is buried
Down where the darkness surrounds
After the end of the violence
After the sky has gone dark
Now there is nothing but silence
Broken by the beat of our hearts
He's gone
He's gone
He's gone
He's gone
After the last words are spoken
We lay him down in the grave
After our hearts have been broken
Have all our hopes been betrayed?
He's gone
He's gone
He's gone
He's gone
Here at the tomb with our spices
Love from our hearts is not gone
Watch 'til the breaking sun rises
What will we see in the dawn?

Holy Saturday is a time of both absence and presence. Still your body and mind as you invite Jesus to be with you in this midway place.

Asking for the courage to stay in the ‘valley of the shadow of death’, how have you been able to sense God’s presence during this challenging week?


What thoughts, desires or feelings have arisen within you as you prayed with this week’s Scripture passages?

Many Christians bypass Holy Saturday, leaping from the sorrow of Jesus’ death to the triumphant celebration of his resurrection. The ancient creeds of the church invite us not to do that, but to stay with a sense of his absence, as his disciples felt it. Why do you think that is? How does the story of Jesus’ suffering and death leave you feeling?


Icons from the Orthodox tradition of the descent into Hell show Jesus kicking down the gates of Hell and pulling Adam and Eve from their tombs as the first fruits of his risen power, while Satan lies flattened and chained below the gates, surrounded by the locks and keys by which he has bound human beings. It’s a wonderful depiction of the freedom won for us by the blood of Jesus. Do you have a sense of liberation in his death? What would you like to say to him about this?

We adore you, O Christ, and we bless you, because by your holy Cross you have redeemed the world.