“Reminders of home,” she called them. I looked up from my coffee and out the window as my friend casually gestured to the seagulls outside. Seeing that I wore confusion on my face, she elaborated. “Seagulls, anywhere but the sea are reminders that we are travelers on the way; that we will always be foreigners until we are home.”
I was reminded of her observation on the way to the grocery store this week as, you guessed it, I watched the seagulls (Gulls! My high school biology teacher would be sure to correct me) circling the parking lot. Why they do this, I will never understand. I will be forever grateful for her insight because of their ever-present company circling above the parking lot light posts and unintentionally calling me out of myself.
We are approaching Holy Week once again, and although I tell myself we listen to the story for my children, I suspect I will always go back to C.S. Lewis this time of year, allowing fauns, beavers, and Aslan, to guide me out of the season of ‘eternal winter.’ Because good children’s stories are timeless and communicate important truths, I am paying attention to light posts. This delicious ritual alongside Madeline L’Engle’s encouragement (Walking on Water) to tesseract our way to places, uninhibited by time and space, as we are in art.
And so we all do, as we navigate Passiontide, becoming pilgrims, having our feet washed after the last supper on Holy Thursday, venerating the Cross on Good Friday, feeling the ache of the tomb on Holy Saturday, and rejoicing on Easter Sunday.
In the same way, passing gulls remind me of the eventual hope of heaven; entering into Holy Week puts into practice our ability to be present in the Paschal Mystery right now.
Whether with Aslan, Mrs. Whatsit, Mary, Simon, Mary Magdalene, or the Crucified Lord, I pray that you are accompanied through this holiest of weeks and that it is deeply meaningful. I’ve included a variety of reflections from previous years if you are looking for ways to enter more deeply into Holy week:
Maundy Thursday, Lodgepoles
Holy Thursday & an invitation, if you didn’t get to join the Catholic Social Teaching Spotlight last year, you can find it all here.
Good Friday, I hear you, Mary
Holy Saturday, see below for a reflection I shared for a local volunteer group this week
Easter Sunday, Scripture verses about Resurrection
Be on the lookout for a prayer I’m sharing with Mothering Spirit this week, for when we cannot afford the luxury of Lent.
Holy Saturday
A reading from the Gospel according to Luke:
It was the day of preparation, and the sabbath was about to begin. The women who had come from Galilee with him followed behind, and when they had seen the tomb and the way in which his body was laid in it, they returned and prepared spiced and perfumed oils. Then they rested on the sabbath according to the commandment.
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It had been a long day.
Take a minute to imagine how these women must have been feeling.
Luke, always sure to include detail about the presence of women, describes that it was Jesus’ friends Mary Magdalene, Joanna, and Mary who stayed until the bitter end of the longest day. Long enough to see where it was that Jesus’ body would be laid because, in all practicality, they were preparing to do what came next: anoint him. His friends were preparing themselves to prepare his body for burial in the Jewish tradition. Not only that, but they were in a hurry because it was nearly dusk, and as faithful Jews themselves, they would have been going home to observe Shabbat.
Perhaps you have found yourself in a similar position. A place where your heart hasn’t had time to catch up to what is being asked of your hands. Your head is not processing, and your heart has not accepted the truth of what is plainly before you.
This experience is one of shock, grief, and disbelief, all co-mingling and taking up residence. Most are familiar with the stages of grief, which begin with denial. Instinctive or otherwise, denial numbs us from the whiplash of what was true and isn’t any longer because we simply cannot catch up, emotionally.
Think about what these women, all of the disciples, must have been trying to reconcile: Jesus was not who he said he was.
Just hours earlier, they were eagerly watching to see how their friend Jesus, Son of God was going to be made known to the world. Their friend, the One they had come to know as the miracle worker and Messiah, had come to set Israel free and reign, victorious. But…
Imagine their confusion when Jesus does not approach the Sanhedrin with force or might. Imagine their humiliation as the One they had come to believe would be their Savior, is mocked, spit upon, and stripped of his clothing in front of the jeering crowd. Jesus was not the heavenly King they expected–he was all too human, and his crucifixion proved it.
We have to begin here, in this place of deep desolation, and in the context of previous days’ events, to fully appreciate what the women were about to undertake as they made preparations to bury Jesus, alongside their hopes of a Savior.
Mary Magdalene, Mary, and Joanna showed up at the place of pain and humiliation–their beloved Jesus’, and their own (how could they have gotten it so wrong?!). The very tactile act of mixing burial spices, making tangible again the truth they hoped not to believe.
They didn’t have to show up–in fact, most didn’t. It’s not clear where the rest of Jesus’ disciples spent ‘holy Saturday.’ After all, purity laws being what they were, being in contact with the dead at the dawn of Shabbat would have made them ritually unclean, and Jesus appeared to be a fraud. But, despite their deep grief, and out of love for their friend, they rolled up their sleeves and took on this work of mercy to dignify their beloved.
There is wisdom for us here, of course.
The women in Luke’s Gospel are small figures in the greater Easter story, but we find them giving, digging in when the world appeared not to be watching. Disillusioned as they may have been, they showed up, imperfectly carrying out the next step on a journey they couldn’t understand or predict. Not so different from us on any given day.
In the same way that we venerate the Cross and acknowledge Jesus’ agony on Good Friday, we might do well to spend some time in prayer with the faithfulness of Jesus’ friends on Holy Saturday.
-Who do you love that has disillusioned you, and what is your posture toward them?
-Which of your hopes have gone unfulfilled? How do you choose to move forward?
-Have you left room in the space between your head and your heart for the Christ to do something illogical, unpredictable, and unimaginable?