You're listening to the I Pray with the Gospel Daily Reflection on the St. Jose Maria Institute podcast.

In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, amen.

My Lord and my God, I firmly believe that you are here, that you see me, that you hear me.

I adore you with profound reverence.

Ask your pardon for my sins and the grace to make this time of prayer fruitful.

My immaculate mother, St. Joseph, my father, and Lord, my guardian angel, intercede for me.

Holy Saturday.

Today the altar is left bare and no mass is celebrated. Holy Saturday. Today the altar is left bare and no mass is celebrated. Holy Saturday is a silent day. Creation is in silence. Heaven is in silence too. The angels haven't

forgotten what men did to Jesus yesterday. Christ's body lies in the grave,

and you and I sit by the corpse in grief.

His cold dead body still bears the scars of the intense suffering,

those mortal wounds on his body that will remain visible for all eternity.

They remind humanity of the price of our sins. See on his serene face the

injuries received to erase our sins. See there the marks of the blows received in order

to refashion our warped nature in his image. On his back, see the impression of the scourging endured to remove the burden

of sin that weighs upon our shoulders. See those hands nailed firmly to a tree for us.

The holes on those feet that walk the earth giving hope. His disciples are weeping in a dark corner

of Jerusalem, not daring to hope. Their master is dead. Their hopes are dead. Their dreams are

over. The body that they followed, the one they loved, is now cold and stiff. Jesus is dead. We would love to remind them

that Holy Saturday is past. Holy Saturday was only once, and is now over. Easter Sunday has come,

and the dead is now alive. He will never die again. To all those Christians, who today still live in a perpetual

holy Saturday, discouraged and without hope, we can proclaim that Jesus died but is not dead anymore.

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