The Grand Silence of Holy Saturday

Praying silently.

This day, of all days, I pray silently.  When I use words, it seems I can only accuse myself of all my sins, because today everything seems dark.  And there, mysteriously, I encounter Christ ...

Lord my God, I call for help by day
I cry at night before you.

I am reckoned as one in the tomb;
I have reached the end of my strength,
Like one alone among the dead,
like the slain lying in their graves,
like those you remember no more,
cut off, as they are, from your hand.

You have laid me in the depths of the tomb,
in places that are dark, in the depths.
Your anger weighs down upon me;
I am drowned beneath your waves...

So there is no consolation, save the awareness that Jesus bore all of my shame and was accused and condemned for all of my lies, my lust, my sin ...

Wretched, close to death from my youth,
I have borne your trials, I am numb.

No consolation.  The Sorrowful Mother, who embraces the dead Christ cannot be consoled, neither can she reject the sinner.  So I sit alone and in silence ... in confidence, love and thanksgiving ... pondering what the Holy Father said: "To remain silent, to pray, to accept humiliation."