It is Black Saturday. In the Lenten tradition, this is a day of mourning after Christ died on Good Friday.
I remember when I was in the Philippines that Lent, especially Holy Week, marked the onset of the oppressive summer heat and the stoppage of regular activities to give way to recreating the passion and death of Christ. Everything shut down and the minimal access to television meant watching Jesus of Nazareth, Christ of the Ocean, The Ten Commandments, The Robe, Joan of Arc, The Song of Bernadette and others with biblical themes that created moments of reflection.
Somehow, I also remembered having the sensation of uneasiness, not of any apocalypse (I have an overactive imagination) but of the enveloping depth and profundity of the agony, suffering and death that Christ had to endure for the salvation of humankind. And perhaps it was also the uneasiness of knowing that the season of Lent brings to the surface the ownership of the weaknesses of the human soul and the desire for repentence and atonement.
Beyond outward traditions that are practiced by those who view Lent as a holy season, internal reflections are as significant. Silence becomes a friend, and the return to self and God with reflections, prayers, faith and song can stir the mind and soul to something magnificent as Easter approaches.
Easter is still hours away, yet like the crescendo of a song, it conjures images of light, life, promise, hope and rebirth.
Christ was born, suffered, died and resurrected. In the context of Lent, I believe that U2's song, Magnificent, is a celebratory proclamation of Easter's life-affirming gift:
...Only love, only love can leave such a mark
But only love, only love can heal such a scar...
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