Holy Saturday is a quiet day. The sacraments (except for Penance and Anointing of the Sick) are not to be celebrated until the Vigil tonight after dark. It’s a time in between the suffering and death of Christ on Good Friday and the joy of his resurrection on Easter.

It’s a time to ponder and reflect. Fr. Jack Keefe commented recently that all the great leaders had a period of time to reflect after a time of apparent failure. Nelson Mandela spent all those years in prison. If he had not, what kind of leader would he have become? An angry, bitter revolutionary? Who knows? But his time there helped him to put things into perspective.

Moses with his flash of hot anger killed an Egyptian and then fled. His time tending the sheep was probably a time for him to reflect and think. It was a time to ponder, to ask himself what really mattered, what was more important and what was not so important. It was a time for him to get his anger until control, until he had a cold anger which would propel him to action, but would be guided and directed at the right people in an effective way.

• Uncategorized