‘Holy Saturday stands in the mysterious middle between Cross and Resurrection’

The Triduum is the high point of the liturgical year as the Church celebrates the definitive event in the history of the world—the Passion, Death and Resurrection of Jesus Christ, the Son of God. The liturgies of “Three Days” are the Mass of the Lord’s Supper, Good Friday of the Lord’s Passion and the Mass of the Resurrection of the Lord (which includes both the Easter Vigil on Holy Saturday night and the Easter Sunday celebrations).

This year marks a special remembrance for me personally. Holy Saturday will mark the 20th anniversary of my father’s death (April 19, 2005)—the same day that Pope Benedict XVI was elected to the Office of Peter. In a January 2023 ICR article, “Memories of Benedict: Losing a biological father and gaining a spiritual one the same day,” I wrote:

I received a call from my wife, who told me to come home from work. There had been a tragic accident. During the time I was praying for our new Pope in Mass, my father was killed in an industrial accident while harvesting and recycling trees along the Boise River. My biological father was dead.

April 19 was a day marked drastically both with great joy and a descent into deep sadness, confusion and loss. My father’s life had ended, Pope Benedict’s pontificate had begun, and my life was forever changed.

In our reflections about the paschal mystery, especially around the events of the Triduum, we focus intently on the events of Good Friday and Easter Sunday, but often, not much is said about the deep mysteries of Holy Saturday and their significance for our salvation.

In Catholic tradition, Holy Saturday is the time in which Jesus “descends to hell” or what some have called the “Harrowing of Hell.” In this descent to the dead, Christ announces the gospel of salvation to those who had died before He came into the world and frees the righteous from the hold of death.

The epic poet Dante, writer of The Divine Comedy, relates this scene in Canto 4 of the Inferno. “I beheld a Great Lord enter here; the crown he wore, a sign of victory.” The poem goes on to say that Adam, Abel, Noah, Moses, Abraham, David and Rachel were made blessed by the Lord, and notes that these patriarchs and matriarchs from the Old Testament preceded everyone else in being raised to new life.

This is an allusion in 1 Peter to this event: “After being made alive, he went and made proclamation to the imprisoned spirits—to those who were disobedient long ago when God waited patiently in the days of Noah while the ark was being built…” (1 Pt 3:18-20).

The 20th-century Swiss theologian Hans Urs von Balthasar has a beautiful and extensive reflection on the significance of Holy Saturday in his book Mysterium Paschale (The Paschal Mystery). Balthasar dedicates 33 pages to this topic in his treatise on the life, death and Resurrection of Jesus—reflecting on the days of the Triduum.

Father John Berry writes about Balthasar’s theology of Holy Saturday in an article titled, “Saved through the death of Christ on the cross: In light of Hans Urs von Balthasar’s theology.” Berry writes, “For Balthasar, between Good Friday and Easter Sunday, there is the incommensurability of the yawning gap between the living God and the dead sinner. Holy Saturday stands in the mysterious middle between Cross and Resurrection.”

In contrast with the actions of the Son in the “Harrowing of Hell,” Balthasar describes the power of the events of Holy Saturday in terms of inactivity or passivity in the face of death. “Here, Jesus is no longer able to do anything. Jesus can merely “be” with humanity in the solidarity of the powerlessness of the sinner. In the descent into hell on Holy Saturday, Jesus’ kenosis (self-emptying) reaches its utmost limit, and His mission reaches its fullness.” Holy Saturday shows us Jesus’s real solidarity with humanity. In death, Jesus experienced the full weight of abandonment and entered the desolation of the sinner.

When I lost my father 20 years ago, I entered a period of loss, abandonment and separation, which felt like my own Holy Saturday. However, since this time, I have experienced “new life” and have grown in grace and love, knowing that my father is experiencing the resurrected life of Jesus, who died for him, accompanied him in death, and will raise him on the last day.

As we celebrate the Easter mysteries this year, let us be reminded of the sorrowful “depths” Jesus experienced on Holy Saturday so that we might celebrate Easter Sunday in joy.