The waiting experience

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Traces

Welcome to the Saturday Examen.

This week’s readings can be hard to absorb and yet we are invited every year to walk the road to Calvary with Jesus. It needs courage and generosity to do this, yet we know that these days overflow with grace if we can stay with them as they unfold.

St. Ignatius emphasizes the importance of entering into the waiting experience of Holy Saturday. The creeds and ancient icons of Jesus ‘descending into hell’ show him in the dark vault of the underworld, flattening the gates of hell with strong feet in which we see the mark of the nails. Satan is crushed under the gates and lies there, bound and chained as he has previously bound and chained us and all of God’s creation.

The vault below is full of the locks and chains with which Satan has imprisoned us, but Jesus pulls Adam and Eve into the light of his love and freedom. St. Paul tells us that he frees the whole of creation from the frustration to which it was subject. Everything and everyone is brought to the fulness of life in Jesus.

As you think of this time of waiting, and the liberation brought to our world by Jesus’ death and resurrection, become aware of God’s presence in your life and in the world. What gifts and graces would you want to thank God for, as you remember experiencing God’s liberating love and mercy in your life?

Perhaps you can find an icon of this scene to contemplate. If not, how do you feel as you imagine Jesus freeing us and the whole of creation from all that is death-dealing and that frustrates God’s life-giving purposes?

Choose one of this week’s readings and remember the gifts that you prayed for. Perhaps you want to express sorrow and repentance. How do you find yourself praying now in this Holy Saturday waiting time?

Tomorrow, we celebrate the glorious miracle of Jesus’ rising from death and darkness into eternal light. He takes us with him, even when the circumstances of our life or of the world around us seem empty of hope. What gifts and graces do you want to ask of him for the renewal of the world?

We adore you O Christ and we bless you

For by your Holy Cross, You have redeemed the world.

Amen