Holy Saturday Prayer:
All-powerful and ever-living God, Your only Son went down among the dead and rose again in glory. In Your goodness raise up Your faithful people, buried with Him in baptism, to be one with Him in the eternal life of Heaven, where He lives and reigns with You and the Holy Spirit, one God, forever and ever.Amen
Something strange is happening - there is a great silence on Earth today, a great silence and stillness. The whole Earth keeps silence because the King is asleep. The Earth trembled and is still because God has fallen asleep in the flesh and He has raised up all who have slept ever since the world began. God has died in the flesh and hell trembles with fear.
He has gone to search for our first parent, as for a lost sheep. Greatly desiring to visit those who live in darkness and in the shadow of death, He has gone to free from sorrow the captives Adam and Eve, He who is both God and the Son of Eve. The Lord approached them bearing the cross, the weapon that had won Him the victory. At the sight of him Adam, the first man He had created, struck his breast in terror and cried out to everyone: “My Lord be with you all”. Christ answered him: “And with your spirit”. He took him by the hand and raised him up, saying: “Awake, O sleeper, and rise from the dead, and Christ will give you light”.
[ This Holy Saturday reading on the descent of the Lord Jesus into Hell is used in the Roman Church's Office of Readings for Holy Saturday, with the accompanying biblical reading of Hebrews 4:1-13. The "harrowing of hell" and the rescue of Adam and Eve was a popular theme in early and medieval Christian poetry, liturgy and song. Note the parallels here between Adam and Eve's sin, which lost paradise for us, and the passion of Christ, which won for us not simply an earthly paradise, but eternal life. While it appears that this comes from a Holy Saturday homily written in Greek dating back to the fourth century liturgy (PG 43, 439, 462f), the author of this text is unknown. ]
No comments:
Post a Comment