Holy Saturday: Waiting

6:45 pm - It was a busy morning and midday: Matins and the little Proper Liturgy for Holy Saturday, with four of us, followed by about six hour on the organ bench. I could do more, especially with the prelude for tomorrow's 7:45 and 9:00 services – for both of them, I plan to improvise on “Easter Hymn” (Jesus Christ is risen today), and this is the one thing that I have most neglected. And there is the prelude for 11:00, a trumpet/organ duo by Telemann that I did not see until Thursday – and was unable to practice on Friday. That accounted for about two of today's six hours.

But more practice would likely be counterproductive, and I had setup to do; moving stands and chairs upstairs for tomorrow's 11:00, carefully setting up the organ console and conductor's stand for tonight – I will have to dash into the church, turn on the organ, and jump right into the Bach “Christ lag ins Todesbanden” and the Mathias Gloria in excelsis, and everything must be in place.

Before that, I rested from about 3:00 to 5:00. That is as much a part of Holy Saturday as any of the work, and equally necessary. I have arranged my life along the lines suggested (but not followed) by B. Franklin: “early to bed, early to rise.” It was not always so, but it has been since I started work in this parish, where my Sunday morning practicing must be completed by 7:15 am and I must be at my best for 9:00 and 11:00 services – and where I am Officiant for Matins several times in the week, so that I must be on the 6:13 am bus.

The drawback is that by 11:00 or 11:30 tonight when we get to the Pièce d'Orgue as the postlude, it will be at my lowest energy level, an hour when I am normally asleep. I have often played very badly for the Vigil Postlude; I hope it is not so this time.

But with all this, Holy Saturday remains mostly about Waiting.

O God, Creator of heaven and earth: Grant that, as the crucified body of thy dear Son was laid in the tomb and rested on this holy Sabbath, so we may await with him the coming of the third day, and rise with him to newness of life; who now liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen [Collect for Holy Saturday: BCP p. 170]

Or as it says in Lamentations:

It is good that a man should both hope and quietly wait for the salvation of the LORD (3:26)

It occurred to me to read this as the Opening Sentence at Evensong, a little while ago. I had been setting things up in the Church as the shadows lengthened. The Church is especially lovely at this hour with the sun streaming through the west windows, and that reminded me that it was the Hour of Prayer. So I did, and it was uncanny how well the lessons fit my state of mind: Psalm 27, Romans 8.

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I have sought to post an essay each day this week, and now it is done. If you have made it this far with me, thank you for reading. May the grace and power of the Resurrection be with you this night and always.