On BLACK SATURDAY

A young seventh-day Adventist pastor asked me why do Catholics go to church on Sundays. He said that Sabbath day is Saturday and therefore the Catholic Church transgresses the third commandment to keep the Sabbath day holy by transferring it to a Sunday.

I told him, we publicly worship God in the church on Sundays because we are Catholics. If we were seventh-day Adventists, we would go to church on Saturdays. But we are Catholics! We celebrate the day when Christ is risen from the dead and not on the day while His body was laid to rest in the tomb. All the four Gospels (Mark 16, Matthew 28, Luke 24 and John 20) tell us that Jesus appeared as the risen Christ after the Sabbath, at dawn on the first day of the week which was Sunday. If we try to rejoice on Black Saturday and mourn on Easter Sunday, even our common sense can tell us there is something wrong with what we are doing. Jesus was right in saying then, “To what can I compare this generation? They are like children sitting in the marketplaces and calling out to others: We played the pipe for you, and you did not dance; we sang a dirge, you did not mourn.”

Today, on this Black Saturday, we pray for those people who undergo, who have undergone, who went through or shall be undergoing some grieving process in their lives. We pray because we do not have the answer why bad things happen to good people and worst, the death of a beloved has destroyed their peace.

I recall my classmate (in my elementary years) who was kind and good to me. Recently, she got married and gave birth to a baby girl. But the baby was born with congenital anomalies. It was very hard for her to see her baby suffering from the start of her life. When she told me about this and asked if this is the form of God’s punishment. I said God never punishes good people. But I was silenced by her suffering. I had no answer.

I remember how I was silenced by death when a parishioner in one of the parishes where I was assigned cried before me. She was a prayerful person. She recited all the novenas and devotional prayers every day.  She was an example of a modern-day saint because she was so kind and generous. There was no hatred in her heart no matter how others tried to spite her. One September afternoon, when she arrived from abroad, she waited for her son to pick her up at the airport but the latter never showed up. She later learned that her son who was about to fetch her was murdered on that day. I could not say anything to comfort her. I just prayed in silence.

I also remember a good friend of mine in one of the parishes where I was assigned. It was Good Friday, and we prayed during the procession. After the procession, we were having good conversations when she received a message that her son met an accident. She thought it was just a bad joke. When she immediately went home, she finally learned that his son was dead due to a car accident. On the next day, Black Saturday I visited her son in a funeral parlor, where I saw my friend with her teary eyes and her trembling lips. At that moment, I was silenced by death and I could not say anything to comfort her.

My dear friends, Black Saturday is the day we remind ourselves of Jesus who knows what suffering of an innocent person means by undergoing the same. We offer then our prayers for all who are suffering, mourning or grieving that they can find hope in the risen Christ.