Would you mind being borrowed?

Holy Saturday has always been one of my favorite days of the Easter Triduum.  For me, it is more silent than Good Friday.  Good Friday is a noisy day.  As I walk with Jesus on the journey to the cross I can hardly bear it.  I feel so  crowded, all the jostling and the pushing, the cruelty, the cries of hate, the tears of sorrow.  Violence is always difficult and when a good person is being condemned unjustly it is more heartbreaking than I know how to describe.  I am relieved when Joseph of Arimathea and Nicodemus come for his body and lay it in the tomb.  It was a borrowed tomb, one in which no one had yet been laid.

Holy Saturday is a day of waiting.  Not much is happening.The Beloved is in the tomb.  Sorrow has taken away our words and we are very silent, so silent. The silence is deep.  Every Holy Saturday I go to my Holy Week file and take out a meditation.  I read it again and again. This reflection is from Living Faith (Creative Communications for the Parish)  and it was written by James Adams.  Because I find it so moving I take the liberty of sharing it with you here.

I had no grave of my own.  My body was laid in somebody else's tomb.  Was it fitting that I be buried in a borrowed tomb?  Yes!  I was always borrowing things.  I borrowed a crib in Bethlehem to be born.  I borrowed Peter's boat to preach from.  I borrowed a donkey to ride on when I came to Jerusalem.  I borrowed bread and wine to make my body move and my blood to flow in history.  I borrowed thorns, wood and nails to redeem the universe.  Why should my burial be any different?

I will go on borrowing things until the end of time, until I have borrowed them all and made them holy.

I will also borrow you.  You will be my tongue and my throat, parched.  You will be my hands and feet, nailed.  You will be my head, thorned.  You will be my side lanced.  You will be my body stripped.  You will be my corpse, buried.  And when the borrowing is over, you will be my sisters and my brothers, risen and unspeakably happy.         -James E. Adams

So let's allow the Holy One, Source of our Life, Source of all Life
to borrow us.  Remember, we are being borrowed together.  We'll all be there!  

On the eve of Good Friday I always go to our empty chapel
and just sit before all that is gone. Holy Thursday adornments have been taken away.
No altar cloth.  Not a candle in sight.
The tabernacle door is empty and open resembling an empty tomb.
In spite of the tremendous absence that I feel
there is also an incredible presence.
Now I know why; it is because I've been borrowed.
Now I am the temple of Christ's presence
You are too!

HAVE A DEEP, SILENT HOLY SATURDAY
AND A JOYOUS EASTER!