Night

As a mother whose children often do this to her, it seems to me that the Infinite Patience of God is a wonder that would take an eternity to contemplate.

Jesus at the Tomb (Vladimir Borovikovsky)

It is the night before the Resurrection of Christ.

In the eternal Sacrifice of the Eucharist, I can understand that this Sacrifice that we commemorate today is the SAME Sacrifice that occurred more than twenty centuries ago when Christ was Crucified on the Cross.

This day – Easter Saturday – the DAY BEFORE EASTER, is the ONLY day in the entire year when we do not celebrate Holy Mass.  Instead, we reflect on the Crucified Christ – in the Tomb.  Buried and waiting for the moment of His Resurrection, when He conquered Death…

I have been reflecting on that.  I have been reflecting on the experience of Christ Himself after Death.  After all, we recite in the Apostle’s Creed that during this time Christ “descended into Hell” and from there “He rose from the Dead and Ascended into Heaven”.

And I have been reflecting on what that must have felt like – in Hell…

After all, Christ is the Second Person of the Most Holy Trinity and as the Second Person of God, He is in eternal relationship with the other Two Persons of the Most Holy Trinity.  However, during these days of His Passion and Death, Christ was not in the constant presence of the other Two Persons of the Most Holy Trinity.  In other words, it was not the Trinity who died on the Cross and was buried in the tomb – it was Christ alone.

And that is something profound to consider.  After all, Saint Mother Teresa of Calcutta wrote in “I Loved Jesus in the Night” at page 54, “Prayer is not meant to be a torture, not meant to make us feel uneasy, is not meant to trouble us. It is something to look forward to, to talk to my Father, to talk to Jesus, the one to whom I belong: body, soul, mind, heart. And when times come when we can't pray, let me allow Him to pray in me, to talk to His Father in the silence of my heart. Since I cannot speak – He will speak; since I cannot pray – He will pray. That’s why we should say: ‘Jesus in my heart, I believe in your faithful love for me.’”

And this was a human experience of spiritual dryness and isolation.  And yet, what Christ experienced – in His Divinity – is so much more profound than I could ever imagine.

And now – on this day and again on this dark dark night, when Christ descended into Hell – it occurs to me that perhaps the greatest suffering of my Beloved was not the thorns or the nails or the cross of the ridicule or the spits and torments and blows.  Perhaps the greatest suffering of my Beloved was in fact the Perfect Son was separated for a time from the Perfect Father and the Perfect Love between them.  And when I stop to reflect on that today, it seems that such a terrible suffering as that is truly too difficult to contemplate…

For with prayer, I stand on Holy Ground where everything is clear. Here. At the Foot of the Cross.