V.J.E.
Praised be Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament!
This Lent, we have been sharing reflections by our Sisters on Ash Wednesday and each of the Sundays of Lent. In our final post this Lent, one of our Sisters would like to share a reflection on the Triduum: Holy Thursday, Good Friday, and Holy Saturday. Our hope is that the fruit of our Sisters’ prayer may bless you as we journey through Lent seeking greater intimacy with Jesus each of the forty days.
This reflection is written by Sr. Yvelyne Marie Bernard, HMSS.
The Triduum is most likely my favorite liturgical season—three days of intense participation in the Paschal Mystery of our redemption in Christ Jesus our Lord!
We begin by eating with Him a meal that He, with so much desire, has desired to eat with us. Then we stay with Him, remain with Him, watching and praying, at the Altars of Repose of our parishes, beautifully decorated to resemble a garden—maybe Gethsemane, maybe Eden. Then we walk the road of sorrow and weep over Him who tells us that we should rather weep for ourselves and our children. And finally…we wait, in the most eerie silence, filled with overwhelming grief…for something to happen.
And then…something does happen—something beyond our wildest imaginings!
But the Church in her wisdom does not allow us to jump from the sorrow of Good Friday immediately into the joy of Easter Sunday. No, she has us linger in the stillness of Holy Saturday.
Of all the days of the Triduum, Holy Saturday is the most daunting to endure because we are invited to be like the first disciples who did not know the end of the story. We know the end of the story so it is hard for us to accept this invitation. We would rather skip to the joy of Easter. But if we do not accept this invitation, we miss out on a profoundly life shaping, life deepening, life changing experience.
Place yourself in the sandals of the first disciples and experience how gut wrenching and truly excruciating it is to be someone who believed that the man you thought was God… is now dead. Imagine yourself reliving memories and playing them over and over again in your mind as a way to try and figure things out, make sense of what is happening. But the more you try to find a footing, or solid ground, the more you feel yourself sinking deeper and drowning faster. You remember hearing Him say “I am the Resurrection and the Life.” You remember Him asking His friend if she believed this and she had said yes to Him. You can imagine Him looking at you in the eyes and asking the same question: “Do you believe this?” And with all honesty, can you really hope against hope and say yes, or do you succumb to doubt and despair? No, Holy Saturday is an eternity long for a grieving heart. The wait is tumultuous and painful for in the wait there exists a trial of faith so deep and purifying that it reveals who we are in the face of truth and what matters most. It exposes what lies beneath and asks us not what we know, but what we trust.
And all the while—Christ is at work.
Though the tomb is sealed and heaven seems silent, He is not absent. He is moving in hidden ways, descending like water into the deepest places, reaching even into the darkness we cannot name. What appears to us as stillness is, in truth, the quiet unfolding of victory.
There is a line in the song “Way Maker” that echoes this mystery: “Even when I don’t see it, You’re working.”
That is Holy Saturday.
Christ is not giving us the silent treatment—He is giving us space. Space to confront ourselves. Space to wrestle with doubt. Space to discover what we truly believe when nothing seems to be happening.
Like water, His grace moves quietly, seeping into the lowest and most forgotten places within us. And there, in the depths, it begins to rise—not with noise or spectacle, but with steady, life-giving power—until it lifts us out of darkness and into His marvelous light.
And so we wait.
Not in despair, but in hope stretched to its limits. Not in certainty, but in trust that is being refined.
Because soon—and very soon—something will happen.