"The Foolishness and the Blindness of the Dark Lord"

It's Holy Saturday, the day the Church lays silent and still, waiting for the dawn of Resurrection.  

From the Catechism:

Christ went down into the depths of death so that "the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God, and those who hear will live."⁴⁸⁵ Jesus, "the Author of life", by dying destroyed "him who has the power of death, that is, the devil, and [delivered] all those who through fear of death were subject to lifelong bondage."⁴⁸⁶ Henceforth the risen Christ holds "the keys of Death and Hades", so that "at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth."⁴⁸⁷ 

Today a great silence reigns on earth, a great silence and a great stillness. A great 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. . . He has gone to search for Adam, our first father, 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 Adam in his bonds and Eve, captive with him - He who is both their God and the son of Eve. . . "I am your God, who for your sake have become your son. . . I order you, O sleeper, to awake. I did not create you to be a prisoner in hell. Rise from the dead, for I am the life of the dead."⁴⁸⁸

On this day of silence and stillness, I remember loved ones who have passed.  My maternal and paternal grandparents, my aunt Pepa, my cousin Rick, my aunt Betty, my uncle Clarence, my cousin's wife Diane, my son's friend David, my friend Don, my wife's uncle Lacy.  I remember those lost who've meant a great deal to people I love.  People like Rick.  Like Felix.  Like PapaJohn.

I remember them all with a sadness certainly, but also with a hope born from faith for a reunion.  

Fr. Longenecker expresses this hope nicely on this Holy Saturday:

Life today is dead for the source of life is dead, but because Life cannot die the source of Life cannot die.

This was the fatal mistake of the Lord of Death.

He thought that he had such power that he could kill even Life itself.

The fool.

This is the foolishness and the blindness of the Dark Lord–that he believes so much in his own power that he thinks he can kill the source of life.

To think such a thing is to imagine that the darkness can somehow quench the light.

To think such a thing is to imagine that cold can overcome heat.

For darkness is the absence of light and cold is the absence of heat.

Likewise death is nothing positive. It is the absence of Life.

He goes on, culminating with a description of the death of death itself, the death of death brought about by the Life, the Truth and the Way.

Don't be foolish and blind.  Embrace Him who killed death.

Fully.  

For the sake of a reunion.

Lord, help me to do so.

Amen.