Holy Saturday- Jerusalem Matins

On Saturday morning, my aunt and I get up to go to the Jerusalem Matins service. This year (because of the revised liturgy and revised EVERYTHING, don't get me started) the service lasted about 2 hours. During this service we commemorate the Harrowing of Hell or Christ's descent into Hades to free the souls from Satan's clutches. We take the burial shroud and process with it around the church singing the Trisagion, or "Thrice Holy Hymn" three time. We sing "Holy God, Holy and might, Holy and Immortal. Have mercy on us." This is sung in the funeral melody to remind us of Christ's death the previous day. "This symbolizes Christ's movement through hell anticipating the moment when he will conquer Satan's power of death by rising out of hell and taking all humanity with him" (taken from my church bulletin this year).

The famous "dry bones" passage from Ezekiel is read during Jerusalem Matins. In Ezekiel 37:11-14 it reads: "Then he said to me: Son of man, these bones are the whole house of Israel. They have been saying, 'Our bones are dried up, our hope is lost, and we are cut off!' Therefore, prophesy and say to them: Thus says the Lord God: O my people, I will open your graves and have you rise from them, and bring you back to the land of Israel. Then you shall know that I am the Lord, when I open your graves and have you rise from them, O my people! I will put my spirit in you that you may live, and I will settle you upon your land; thus you shall know that I am the Lord. I have promised and I will do it says the Lord."

Our services during Great Week are filled with readings from the prophets that foreshadowed the suffering, death, and resurrection of the Lord. We read especially from Isaiah, Ezekiel, Daniel and we hear about the trial of Job as well.

After Jerusalem Matins, I am sent on a special mission. I like to call it "Project Easter Basket". Every year the Teens make Easter baskets for members of our parish. The parishioners bring back the baskets but we have to buy new candles and coverings for them every year. That is where I come in. Since not many of the other Teens have their own means of transportation I head out in search of the candles and coverings. Last year I hit the mother load at Home Goods. I found the perfect napkins to use as coverings and they had candles! I was back and forth in a half and hour. This year, I was not so lucky. I found the LAST package of plain (aka boring) white napkins but NO candles, not even cream ones. No biggie, I would just head to Target which is right next door. How on earth Target was out of candles, I will never know, but they were. I headed to three other stores before finding them at Walgreens (of all places) and for really cheap too! I head back to church with my finds and food coloring for the Easter eggs.

I dropped them off and headed home for a much needed nap. I needed to gear up for Vespers with Diving Liturgy later that night! I almost feel like I can justify taking a nap because we believe that even Jesus kept the old Sabbath before rising from the Grave on Sunday.