There is destruction and there is resurrection and in between, there is Saturday.
Our Christian faith calls Holy a day of waiting, a day of wondering, a day of confused despair, a day of not knowing what comes next. That first Holy Saturday they didn’t know Sunday was coming. We live with Sunday inscribed over our hearts and baked into the reality of our world, and yet we, each year, celebrate Holy Saturday as a reminder of what we are called to do: weep with those who weep and mourn with those who mourn.
Yes, the Notre Dame will be rebuilt, but right now it is Saturday and we don’t know how resurrection will come. We are sitting, we are waiting, we are desperately hopeful but we sit with the pain— it is okay to grieve. Saturdays are for grieving. Saturday gives us space for the not knowing, for the acknowledgement of confusion, slack-jawed astonishment that “this was never supposed to have happened.”
Sunday is coming, greater restoration is promised, all in this life is, eventually, temporary, but Saturday breathes with us.