Reflections
“The liturgies of Holy Week can contribute to our becoming more empathetic by exposing us to situations that we have yet to encounter in our lives. This is because the events of Holy Week are recorded with details that allow us to identify the time of year and the days of the week on which they are located,” says The Very Rev’d Dr Peter Catt
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“On this middle day, there is time and space to ponder and pray — space to consider the meaning of the cross,” says Bishop Sarah Plowman
“As a community, after the Easter Day service we celebrated the resurrection of the Lord Jesus with a big kai kai (feast). People from all over the Torres Strait Islands and Papua New Guinea (which was then still administered by Australia) came via sailing canoes rather than by motor boats, bringing seafood, taro, sweet potato, casava, sago and other traditional foods. We then had traditional dancing with men wearing headdresses made of emu feathers and women wearing grass skirts,” says Uncle Milton Walit from NATSIAC and The Parish of Laidley
“On this holy Saturday, we sit with the reality that Jesus came amongst us as a fellow human being, and like all flesh he died. On this day, we are invited to sit with the pain of death and not to rush on and minimise or discount the hurt it causes,” says The Rev’d Dr Ruth Mathieson
“But what actually happened to Jesus between Good Friday and Easter Sunday? The fact that Jesus’ body was in the tomb is undisputed, but there are various conjectures about what happened to Jesus’ spirit, or soul,” says The Rev’d Charlie Lacey from St Andrew’s, Springfield
“In the great liturgy of the Triduum, Holy Saturday comes as an awkward silence between the cross and the resurrection and the temptation is to fill it with noise and busyness. Many parishes will hold working bees or clean-up days on Holy Saturday in readiness for Easter Day…but if as Claude Debussy says, ‘Music is the silence between the notes’, we should respond to the invitation of Holy Saturday and stop, in silence and listen,” says Bishop Jeremy Greaves
“In the Easter story it’s helpful to remember/that resurrection new life/did not arrive quickly/and that disciples, family, and friends/were crushed – shattered – nothing mattered!/The tomb was sealed/and all hope of justice/through future kingdom/had been crushed –shattered…/nothing mattered, anymore!” says Bishop Cam Venables in his Holy Saturday poem
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