April 16, 2022

Holy Saturday

A reflection from Liverpool Cathedral on a busy Holy Saturday

How busy was the tomb?
This vast space falls silent sometimes; I’ve seen it.
Silent with the hum of the hearts and prayers of a thousand warm, living bodies, and silent as the grave, all quiet and dark when only I make my pilgrimage through this great nothingness, this naked vacuum clad in a sandstone veil.

So why, today, is there noise? As Christ lay dead in a sealed tomb, did a choir of angels sing, stopping and starting and repeating their proclamation of his ressurection in faulty snatches and marked-down voices?
As he broke through the gates of hell, were the doors of the gift shop thrown open wide?
As small animals and insects crawled over his corpse, were they vergers re-dressing him in gold, or florists arranging their mortal plant remains?

As Christ lay dead on the seventh day, a nation rested.
Voices of ‘hosanna’ and ‘crucify’ fell silent, and the very stones cried out in praise. In the garden, all was being made new as the whole of creation made ready to welcome back its king, its gift, its mother.

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