Is Holy Saturday merely a breathing-space between intensely emotional Good Friday highlighting the murderous degeneracy of our human nature — and the Resurrection joy of Easter Sunday?

No. Holy Saturday has a unique message of its own.

* * *

Holy Saturday is a day to spend, if possible, in recollection and silence in the presence of Our Lord’s lifeless body in the tomb.

A day to remember that Christ’s willingness to die, and the way he died, was a victory in itself — even before he rose victoriously from the grave.

A spiritual victory:

 *  remember how, amidst the worst that the devil and his greedy, power-crazed human servants could do — he had forgiven.

 *  Our Lord forgave his executioners — also his cowardly denier, Saint Peter.  

 *  he would willingly have forgiven his betrayer — but Judas was already dead.

 *  although surrounded by so much evil, Jesus had still thought of others — especially his mother.

* * *

From the gospels:

When they came to the place called the Skull, they crucified him . . . and Jesus said, “Father, forgive them, they do not know what they are doing.”

When Jesus saw his mother, and the disciple standing by, whom he loved, he said to his mother, “Woman, behold thy son.”  Then he said to the disciple, “Behold thy mother.”

* * *

 O good and gentle Jesus, you gave yourself to us as a ransom for our redemption . . . .

 Grant that we, unworthy though we be, may come to resemble you in your grace, your forgiveness and your love.

Last week, American television current affairs commentator, Brit Hume, said on a panel show that what maritally-unfaithful celebrity golfer, Tiger Woods, needs is to convert to Christianity.

“He is said to be a Buddhist,” Hume observed, “I don’t think that faith offers the kind of forgiveness and redemption that is offered by the Christian Faith.”

Plenty of people were quick to label that comment as outrageous and unacceptable. Hume’s words were replayed on a rival show, to shocked laughter from the audience. Others suggested that Mr Hume is a bigot, an idiot, arrogant etc.

Attempts to proclaim the Christian gospel will often be met with mockery and condemnation – or worse. Jesus himself was crucified. About 11 of his twelve apostles are believed to have been put to death for their preaching.

* * *

Jesus had warned them (and us, if we choose to be his followers), “If the world hates you, know that it has hated me before it hated you . . . the servant is not greater than his master. If they have persecuted me, they will also persecute you . . . yes, the hour is coming when whoever kills you will think he is doing a service to God.”

* * *

He also told them, “I have still many things to say to you: but you cannot bear them now. But when he, the Spirit of Truth, comes, he will teach you all truth.”

Traditional Catholics take these latter words to be Our Lord’s prediction of his Roman Catholic Church being the means by which God will reveal all we need to know about him and his will for us into the future.

Such a belief can be annoying to non-Catholics. But when you investigate the illogical and/or no-sweat  ideologies on offer as alternatives to the Faith, we see how blessed we are by God to have his Church offering us his sacramental grace and teachings.

Radio hosts Kyle Sandilands and Jackie O are back off the air again.

After submitting a 14-year old girl to a stupid and humiliating ordeal (with a lie detector and questions about her “sex life”) their show was scrapped for two weeks.

When the station, on August 18, put them back on, they encountered a backlash from advertisers.

Apparently sponsor companies are not willing to have their products linked with these two personalities anymore, threatening to withdraw their ads if they remain as hosts.

This is a sign of hope.

Are Australians not quite as amoral and hard-hearted as some people may have thought?

Mr Sandilands had “apologised” for the bad program, but his sorrow seemed unconvincing.

He came over as being rather unrepentant.

He is quoted as saying, “We weren’t suspended, we weren’t fired. We weren’t anything. We took ourselves off air because we wanted the story to die down.”

Did he think that Australians don’t care about public child-abuse-as-entertainment?

That after the novelty of their effort “died down” they could come back and do much the same as before?

* * *

To put it all in rather blunt terms, what they did to that girl was a sin.

Sin taints everybody — the one doing it as well as the victim.

More important again, sin offends God.

It is not a good idea to offend God.

God is our judge.

The only way to deal with sin is to repent of it, and to confess it, and get rid of it, and ask God to forgive it, and to firmly resolve that with God’s help one will not sin again.

That is what the Catholic Church teaches.

That is what Jesus Christ taught.

It is all in the Bible.

* * *

To be forgiven, one must come to God in person in the way he has prescribed, which means confessing your sins to a priest, who can then grant you forgiveness and absolution in God’s name.

Jesus gave his Apostles — his first priests — the power to forgive. He told them, “If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained.”  . (John’s gospel, chapter 20)

The Catholic Church teaches that when Christ said that, he meant it.

Other organisations  calling themselves “Christian” — but which do not insist on Confession to a priest — are no good.

Few, if any, Protestant groups practise the Sacrament of Penance — otherwise known as Confession. That is also amazing, considering the teaching of Jesus as quoted above.

* * *

In the Sacrament of Penance, the believer confesses to the priest in a private room (the Confessional) accusing himself of his sins.

The priest may then ask questions. If he is satisfied that you are sorry for your sins, and intend to give them up, he then passes judgement,, and forgives you in God’s name.

Finally he prescribes a “penance” or punishment — usually prayers to be said.

The Sacrament of Penance is the act, on the good performance of which, more than any other duty, your eternal welfare depends.

At every Confession, you should remember that this may be the last Confession you will have the opportunity of making before you die.

Always confess, therefore, with the same sincerity you would have if confessing on your death-bed.

Mary MacKillop was born in Melbourne on January 15, 1842 and died in Sydney on August 8, 1909.

On becoming a nun in 1867, she took the religious name “Sister Mary of the Cross”, so that when Pope John Paul II “beatified” her in 1995, she became “Blessed Mary of the Cross”.

Some people had hopes that she might be “canonised” and become “Saint Mary of the Cross” some time during this anniversary year of 2009.

But some things cannot be rushed.

* * *

What we do need in a rush is to learn what Mary MacKillop’s life can teach us about how we ourselves should live.

What was it that made her able to cope with opposition, bureaucratic bungling and personal ill health — and still live like a saint, maintaining her love for the school children, the Sisters under her charge and even for the enemies of her work.

* * *

The key to understanding Blessed Mary of the Cross is that she was always ready to FORGIVE.

Are not Christians obliged always to forgive? When the twelve disciples asked Jesus how to pray, did he not teach them a prayer which asks God to “forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us” ? 

When enemies were persecuting them, Blessed Mary once wrote telling her Sisters, “never by word or act in this trying time to say or do anything that would reflect upon the Bishop, either his priests or his people. Now more than ever we should be humble, patient, charitable and forgiving. If we cannot excuse everything we can at least excuse the intention.” 

* * *

In modern times people are often browbeaten into making apologies for past events. For example, Mr Rudd’s February 2008 formal “apology” to Australia’s Aborigines for white families having, in the past, for various reasons, taken over the care of Aboriginal children.

Why no formal speech of forgiveness from representatives of the Aboriginal races?

Apologising to human beings is all very well. Apologising to God, and doing what must be done to show him that we are sorry for ever displeasing him — that would achieve a lot more.

Australia, as a nation, will only please God when White Australians and Black Australians join together in united acts of apology to God, acknowledging that none of us — none — has anything to offer God except lives befouled and contaminated by selfishness and sin. 

We must mutually forgive each other and, as one nation, ask God for a complete makeover at both personal and community levels.