AWAITING: A Reflection on Holy Saturday

Today, across the world, we encounter a profound stillness. Symbolically, on Holy Saturday, churches, chapels, and tabernacles are empty - sanctuary lamps extinguished, and altars are stripped bare. This bareness mirrors the tomb itself and draws us into the mystery of Holy Saturday.

Holy Saturday, often overshadowed by the solemnity of Good Friday and the jubilance of Easter Sunday, calls us to pause, to wait, and to reflect. Today occupies a unique space between two defining moments of the Christian faith.

What insights does this day offer us? Might this day of invitational waiting speak to us of the quiet, hidden processes that precede transformation. Can we, like the disciples of old, sit with our doubts and hesitations, acknowledging that the path to new life is often paved with darkness, difficulty, and deferred answers? Holy Saturday beckons us to acknowledge that inner change often comes not with instant clarity, but in the spaces in between, where our belief is stretched and refined.

“Transformation is not a future event. It is a present activity.”
— Jillian Michaels

Holy Saturday’s spiritual richness lies in its invitation to trust even when we cannot see the way forward. Our hope has the capacity to sustain and reassure us that God’s love holds us through all the seasons of life.

Let us pause to embrace this sacred, solemn interlude, and allow its stillness to deepen our awareness of the God of Goodness, who is always birthing new life.

-Sister Nancy Wales, csj

“The slow work of God is so much greater than the instantaneous. We can’t rush things into existence.”

Image: Alicia Quan/Unsplash

Holy Thursday - The Gift of Jesus at the Last Supper

Forever United :  The Gift of Jesus at the Last Supper

When we choose a goodbye gift for those we love, it is sometimes a photo, or maybe a memento of some event we shared, and it is not only to remind our friends of our past, but to say that the present and future also always hold our love. 

What is so moving is the gift Jesus chose for us, a gift that would unite us to him forever. “This is my body, This is my blood”.  It is not only the gift of his body, but of his blood.  In the Torah no Jewish person is permitted to consume blood ‘because the life is in the blood”. (Lev. 17:11-14) Everyone knew that loss of blood in any creature results in death, and since it is God who gives life to all things, blood is not to be consumed.   Even today, that taboo is observed in the way the animal is dispatched and in the recipes for serving meat, which must not allow for any blood, for life is in the blood.

In that Last supper, Jesus’ gift meant a sacred breeching of that Law.  And it would have been the very first time the apostles partook of what they were to understand was the Lord’s blood, his very life joined to their own ‘for the life is in the blood.”   This is what Jesus thought to give us, his goodbye gift, that unites us to him and to each other in his love, and united to him in this way , we bring his life and love to our world,  until  we all meet him face to face in that joyous reunion.

--Sister Wendy Cotter  CSJ

Images: Rey Proenza/Unsplash

Jubilee Hope

These recent weeks have produced a whirlwind of unsettling news. Tariffs being announced,  delayed and then re-announced, natural resources being claimed for other countries benefits, national geographical lines of allocation seen as arbitrary, employment In manufacturing swinging in nets of insecurity.

Yet in spite of all of this there is an aura of hope around us, as citizens of Canada pull together to claim a deeper identity, and as provinces strive to create new trade agreements. For some of us this aura of hope is resonating with our faith and particularly in this year in the call for a Jubilee.

Pope Francis designated 2025 as a Jubilee Year of Hope way before most of these uncertainties listed above took shape. Diocesan offices have quickly pulled together resources, planned pilgrimages to historic churches and organized trips to Rome. What strikes me with the greatest intensity is the underlying principle of a Jubilee year.

“The term Jubilee reflects an older Jewish tradition where every fiftieth year the land was to lie fallow, debts were forgiven and slaves were freed. Holy Year Jubilees are now celebrated every 25 years unless a special occasion warranted an extraordinary year be proclaimed as with the Extraordinary Jubilee of Mercy in 2015-2016.”  (info from London Diocese website)

With each Jubilee, advocacy groups focus on the forgiveness of debt. This year a number of groups have come together under the banner Turn Debt into Hope.

I cite a couple of resources that explain this opportunity far better than I. Here is a wonderful video by Development and Peace:

On March 18th a webinar From Ecological Debt to Ecological Hope was presented by ORCIE (Office of Religious Congregations for Integral Ecology).  Guest speakers were Journalist Elton Bozzetto, Sr. Nilva Dal Bello, CSJ Brazil & Dr. Sue Wilson, CSJ Canada, with Sasquia Antunez Pineda, ORCIE Advocacy and Communications Officer. Learn more with ORCIE’s new position paper: Linking Ecological Debt to Global Financial Exploitation. A shorter executive summary is available.

 Let’s continue to look for the signs of hope in our world.

-Sister Loretta Manzara CSJ

Beyond the Pages

Children’s books have a unique way of embedding timeless wisdom within their pages. We often view these books as simple or purely entertaining, but they hold much more beneath the surface. Their stories impart life lessons that resonate long after we have closed the book or grown older. Whether we are learning about kindness from Winnie the Pooh, the unconditional love of being accepted as we are from Corduroy, courage from The Wizard of Oz, or the power of self-belief from The Velveteen Rabbit. These stories have the power to carry messages that transcend time.

““There is no substitute for books in the life of a child.” ”
— Mary Ellen Chase

Do you have a favourite storybook you reread? Roald Dahl captures this sentiment perfectly in Matilda, writing, “Some books are so good, you want to go on reading them for the rest of your life.” My awareness of the lasting impact of certain children’s books was brought home to me during a weekly reflection gathering on zoom.

““Children’s books are not just books. They are dreams, they are wishes, they are lives, they are belief , they are impossible things. And that is what makes them so powerful.” ”
— Kathi Appelt

These childhood tales teach us about empathy, resilience, friendship, and the core values that shape us into who we are as adults. Many of us can still recall the wisdom shared by the fox in The Little Prince: “And now here is my secret, a very simple secret: It is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye.”

Have I sparked a memory of a children’s book or a shared memorable reading experience with someone from your childhood? Do you recall a book you enjoyed sharing with your child, a relative, or a student? What made the book or experience so memorable?

-Sister Nancy Wales, csj

Image: Robyn Budlender | Annie Spratt/Unsplash