20. THE BEST VERSION OF MYSELF: DESCEND

HOLY SATURDAY VIGIL, March 30th

Follow Jesus…

Jesus will spend three days “in the heart of the earth” as this passage describes. Between Jesus’ death on Good Friday until his resurrection on Easter Sunday, we wait… Holy Saturday is a liminal time of quiet waiting, as God works in the darkness.

to be the best version of myself…

In her book, The Humility of God, Ilia Delio, O.S.F., describes the Franciscan perspective that God comes to us because of love, not because of sin. She writes, “The humility of God means that God’s love is so abundant that God is willing to plunge into the darkness of humanity to bring us into the fullness of life.”¹

Jesus lived out God’s humble, descending way, from his birth in a lowly manger to his death on a criminal’s cross. He taught about being last, about servanthood: “Whoever wants to be first must be last of all and servant of all” (Mark 9:35). He even told the disciples that they would do greater works than he (John 14:12). And Jesus descended into the darkness of the tomb upon his death. His love was always descending, always putting God and neighbor before himself.

for the world.

God, Infinite Love,
Thank you that, through Jesus, you have humbly come to us in love. Through Jesus, you reveal how you are always working to transform us and bring us to new life, even in our darkest times. Work in me today, in this dark and liminal time of waiting. Show me the ways I too, can descend in love for you and your creation. Thank you that today I can wait with hope.

Our reading for tomorrow (Easter Sunday) is Matthew 28:1-10.

¹Delio, Ilia. The Humility of God: A Franciscan Perspective. St. Anthony Messenger Press, 2005.
Photo by Majharul Islam on Unsplash

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Matthew 12:40 (NRSVUE)

For just as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of the sea monster, so for three days and three nights the Son of Man will be in the heart of the earth.