Great Saturday
Great Week. Abstention from meat and foods that contain meat. The Divine Liturgy of St. Basil the Great is celebrated in the late afternoon today.
Matins – Ezekiel 37:1-14; 1 Corinthians 5:6-8; Galatians 3:13,14; Matthew 27:62-66; Vespers – Genesis 1:1-13; Isaiah 60:1-16; Exodus 12:1-11; The Book of Jonah; Joshua 5:10-15; Exodus 13:20-15:19; Zephaniah 3:8-15; 1 Kings 17:8-24; Isaiah 61:I0-62:5; Genesis 22:1-18; Isaiah 61:1-9; 2 Kings 4:8-37; Isaiah 63:11-64:5; Jeremiah 31:31-34; Daniel 3:1-23 and the Song of the Holy Children (Apocrypha); Liturgy – Romans 6:3-11; Matthew 28:1-20.
Read Romans 6:3-11
Glory to Jesus Christ! Glory forever!
Brothers and sisters, today St. Paul reminds us that everything Christ has done for us He shares with us in our baptisms. His death and Resurrection are not just something we remember, or imitate, but rather are things we have been incorporated into through our baptism.
I remember having the amazing opportunity to visit the tomb of Christ during a pilgrimage to the Holy Land in 2017. I was moved not just to look at it and remember it but to kiss and venerate it- I desired to be close to it, to join my life to it. The spiritual reality of my baptism is even deeper. I have been buried with Christ. I have been laid on that burial slab as well with Him. My old life of sin is over and my new life in Him has begun in this world and will continue to the next.
As we rest with our Lord in the Tomb this Great and Holy Saturday brothers and sisters, let us meditate on not simply acting like Jesus, but recognize our life in Christ- His death and Resurrection!