HOLY SATURDAY: CHRISTIANS VISIT GOD’S GRAVE IN CHURCHES IN SILENCE AND PRAYER

SARAJEVO, APRIL 8 (ONASA) – Holy Saturday is the day when the Church stays at the Lord’s tomb and in prayer and fasting thinks about his suffering, death and descent into the underworld, expecting his resurrection. Therefore, believers visit the specially arranged grave of God in the church.
Holy Saturday is celebrated the day before Easter. Together with Maundy Thursday and Maundy Friday, it forms the Easter three days. It is a day of silence and prayer. Holy Saturday is characterized by the Easter vigil, which is celebrated at night, and therefore it is not appropriate to start before nightfall, and it should end before dawn on Sunday. Then the believers gather around the fire, which the priest blesses. The Easter candle, which represents Jesus Christ himself, is also lit with that flame.
The rites of Holy Saturday consist of four parts: the Service of Light, the Service of the Word, the Service of Baptism and the Eucharistic Service.
The service of light or lucernarium has its origin in the Judeo-Christian custom of lighting candles with a prayer of blessing, and in the Easter vigil this magnificent ritual of bringing a candle into a dark church symbolizes Christ’s resurrection. The beginning of this ritual is in Jerusalem, where already in the 5th century the Easter Vigil began with a procession to the Basilica of the Resurrection with lit candles. This rite entered the Roman liturgy somewhat later. Since the 10th century, the blessing of a candle decorated with a cross, the current year, the Greek letters alpha and omega – signs of the beginning and end, and the sticking of five grains of incense – has been introduced. These customs are also present in today’s rite of service of light.
The Easter vigil is a privileged time for the celebration of Christian initiation. The baptismal service became a part of the Easter vigil probably in the 4th century, and in the Roman liturgy it took place in the early morning of Easter, between the Old Testament and New Testament readings of the service of the word. The procession went to the baptismal font, where the blessing of the water and the rite of baptism were performed, and then the Eucharistic celebration continued.
This is followed by the sprinkling of blessed water with the singing of the baptism song, as the last part of the renewal of the baptismal promises. The third part of the Easter vigil ends with the prayer of the faithful.
The Eucharistic service is the climax of the Easter vigil. In it, after the presence in the symbol of the Easter candle, the presence in the word and in the power of baptism, the highest level of the presence of the risen Christ is realized under the circumstances of bread and wine.
The celebration ends with a solemn Easter blessing. (end)