Holy saturday

The Significance Of Holy Saturday

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Holy Saturday, also called Easter Vigil, is the Christian religious observance that ends the Lenten season, falling on the day before Easter Sunday.

12 Things You Need to Know About Holy Saturday

The observance commemorates the final day of Christ’s death, which is traditionally associated with his triumphant descent into hell.

The early church celebrated the end of Lent with large baptismal ceremonies, but for many centuries no services were held on Holy Saturday in the Western churches, recalling the suspended state of Christ’s followers in the period between his Crucifixion and Resurrection.

Beginning in 1955, the Roman Catholic and some other churches restored the evening Easter Vigil.

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The Eastern Orthodox churches had never abandoned the ceremony. The vigil celebration may include lighting fires and candles to symbolize Christ’s passing from death to life and tolling bells to signify the joyous end of Lent.

Many churches also celebrate the baptism of catechumens (unbaptized converts) and the confirmation or chrismation and first communion of both catechumens and candidates (converts who were previously baptized in a different Christian faith tradition) during the Easter Vigil.

Read Also: Pope Francis Urge Christians To Reach Out To Those Suffering

On Holy Saturday the earth waits in stillness for the Resurrection of the Lord. Here are 12 things you need to know about it.

Everytime we say the creed, we note that Jesus “descended into hell.” Holy Saturday is the day that commemorates this event. What happened on this day, and how do we celebrate it?

Here on earth, Jesus’ disciples mourned his death and, since it was a sabbath day, they rested.

Luke notes that the women returned home “and prepared spices and ointments. On the sabbath they rested according to the commandment” (Luke 23:56).

At the tomb, the guards that had been stationed there kept watch over the place to make sure that the disciples did not steal Jesus’ body.

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According to the Catechism of the Catholic Church:

633 Scripture calls the abode of the dead, to which the dead Christ went down, “hell” – Sheol in Hebrew or Hades in Greek – because those who are there are deprived of the vision of God.

Such is the case for all the dead, whether evil or righteous, while they await the Redeemer: which does not mean that their lot is identical, as Jesus shows through the parable of the poor man Lazarus who was received into “Abraham’s bosom”:

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“It is precisely these holy souls, who awaited their Saviour in Abraham’s bosom, whom Christ the Lord delivered when he descended into hell.”

Jesus did not descend into hell to deliver the damned, nor to destroy the hell of damnation, but to free the just who had gone before him.

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