There is almost nothing written in the scriptures about the day after Christ died. The gospels of Mark, Luke and John do not say anything at all about the day after Jesus Christ died. There are no masses in the Catholic church during the day today. The Eucharist has been removed from all the tabernacles throughout the world, and the adoration chapels as well. If you were to go into any Catholic church in the world right now, it would feel empty.
Actually, you should do this sometime if you can. Step into the church on holy Saturday morning. You can feel the emptiness, you can feel a sense that no one is there and it isn’t just because the doors to the tabernacle are open and the body of Christ is no longer there, and the candles have been extinguished either. It is an emptiness you can feel for yourself. No one is there. If you have ever doubted the true presence of Jesus Christ in the Eucharist … step into an empty church today and sit for a few minutes and you will understand His true presence in the Eucharist more deeply now, because of His absence.
This is the only mention of the day after Christ died, in the scriptures from Matthew 27:62-66:
“The next day, the one following the day of preparation, the chief priests and the Pharisees gathered before Pilate and said, “Sir, we remember that this imposter while still alive said, ‘After three days I will be raised up.’ Give orders, then, that the grave be secured until the third day, lest his disciples come and steal him and say to the people, ‘He has been raised from the dead.’ This last imposture would be worse than the first.”
Plate said to them, “The guard is yours; go secure it as best you can.” So they went and secured the tomb by fixing a seal to the stone and setting the guard.”
In a way, it’s ironic that the chief priests and Pharisees were still plotting to destroy any remaining faith in Jesus Christ. They continued to do everything in their power to firmly put to rest any such notion that Jesus was the son of God. The chief priests and Pharisees had Christ’s tomb sealed and a guard stationed outside to prove their point, that Jesus Christ was an impostor, a fake and that everything said about him was a lie. The rumors would not die about this man so the chief priests and Pharisees were determined to make them die. They took control of the situation to ensure the outcome of the whole affair was in their favor.
This was a dark morning, the day after Christ died. The suffering his mother and his disciples were going through must have been deep and terrible. Did they get any sleep during the night? Did they cling together the way so many families do after the recent death of a loved one? There was a huge emptiness in their lives after Jesus died. So many questions yet unanswered. Doubts may have been creeping in like a dense fog. What was going through their minds, their hearts this day?
Evil and death may have seemed to have triumphed and their grief was the only thing that remained.
Saturday Mass Readings:
Gn 1:1–2:2 / Gn 22:1-18 / Ex 14:15–15:1 / Is 54:5-14 / Is 55:1-11 / Bar 3:9-15, 32–4:4 / Ez 36:16-28 / Rom 6:3-11 / Ps 118:1-2, 16-17, 22-23 / Mk 16:1-7
