Waiting in Hope

The image of the 13th station, Jesus Is Taken Down from the Cross. immortalized in Michelangelo's The Pieta lingers into Holy Saturday.  This moment also given artistic recognition in  Franco Zeffirelli's Jesus of Nazareth and Mel Gibson's The Passion of the Christ, but with two different interpretations.  Olivia Hussey, as Mary in the Zeffirelli film, wails her lamentation without restraint, while Maia Morgenstern, in the Passion, stares in cold, numbing, haunting pain straight at the audience. Both underscore the truth that no mother should bury her child. Yet even in this suffering as in the passion and suffering of Jesus, there is hopeful expectation of the future resurrection. It's just a matter of waiting for the clock to reach the actual moment. Holy Saturday finds us in that same stance: the silence, the emptiness, a Mass-less day.  All has come to a halt, but there is a confidence, an anticipation that is tempered and strengthened in the waiting.  May our reflections and our interactions with others this day strengthen and express our hope.
Bro. Rene