Holy Saturday
At the Easter Vigil in the Holy Night of Easter
Tonight's Readings
- Genesis 1.1-2.2
- Genesis 22.1-18
- Exodus 14.15-15.1
- Isaiah 54.5-14
- Isaiah 55.1-11
- Baruch 3.9-15, 32c 4.4
- Ezekiel 36.16-17a, 18-28
- Romans 6.3-11
- Mark 16.1-7
Eucatastrophe
This strange word was coined by J.R.R. Tolkien. In a letter to his son, he describes it as "the sudden happy turn in a story which pierces you with a joy that brings tears (which I argued it is the highest function of fairy-stories to produce). And I was there led to the view that it produces its peculiar effect because it is a sudden glimpse of Truth, your whole nature chained in material cause and effect, the chain of death, feels a sudden relief as if a major limb out of joint had suddenly snapped back. It perceives – if the story has literary 'truth' on the second plane (....) – that this is indeed how things really do work in the Great World for which our nature is made. And I concluded by saying that the Resurrection was the greatest 'eucatastrophe' possible in the greatest Fairy Story – and produces that essential emotion: Christian joy which produces tears because it is qualitatively so like sorrow, because it comes from those places where Joy and Sorrow are at one, reconciled, as selfishness and altruism are lost in Love."
The overwhelming tragedy of the Passion and death of Jesus take the incomprehensible change to absolute, perfect, heavenly joy with his Resurrection. That which should have been the absolute end of all hope became the very foundation upon which to build our joyful hope.
May you find hope and joy with this moment of eucatastrophe. May you encounter God anew in his risen form. May your Easter be blessed.
Jenn
