Pope Leo XIV catechesis about the mystery of Holy Saturday

Pope Leo XIV reflected at the general audience on Wednesday, September 17, 2025 about the passage of the passion of the Lord who tells how Jesus was buried in a new tomb in a garden near where he was crucified.

Dear brothers and sisters,

In our path of catechesis on Jesus hope of ours, today we contemplate the mystery of Holy Saturday. The Son of God lies in the grave. But this “absence” is not a vacuum: it is waiting, contained fullness, promise guarded in the dark. It is the day of the great silence, in which heaven seems silent and the earth motionless, but it is precisely there that the deepest mystery of the Christian faith is fulfilled. It is a gravid silence of meaning, like the belly of a mother who guard the son still not born, but I live.

The body of Jesus, lowered from the cross, was wrapped carefully, as is done with what is valuable. The evangelist Juan tells us that he was buried in a garden, inside “a new tomb, in which no one had been buried” (Jn 19,41). Nothing is left by chance. That garden remembers the lost Eden, the place where God and man were united. And that tomb never used to speak of something that still should happen: it is a threshold, not an end. At the beginning of creation God had planted a garden, now also the new creation takes shape in a garden: with a closed grave that will open.

Holy Saturday is also a day of rest. According to Jewish law, the seventh day should not work: in fact, after six days of creation, God rested (cfr gen 2,2). Now, also the son, after completing his work of salvation, rests. Not because he is tired, but because he has completed his work. Not because he has surrendered, but because he has loved until the end. There is nothing more to add. This break is the seal of the work fulfilled, it is the confirmation of what had to be done and that has been completed. It is a break full of the hidden presence of the Lord.

Let’s fatigue in stopping and resting. We live as if life was never enough. We run to produce, to demonstrate, for not losing ground. But the Gospel teaches us that knowing how to stop is a gesture of trust that we have to learn to fulfill. Holy Saturday invites us to discover that life does not always depend on what we do, but also on how we know how to give up how much we have been able to do.

In the sepulcher, Jesus, the living word of the Father, Calla. But it is precisely in that silence that the new life begins to ferment. Like a seed on earth, like darkness before dawn. God is not afraid of the time that passes, because he is also lord of waiting. Thus, also our “useless” time, that of the pauses, of the gaps, of the sterile moments, can become resurrection belly. All welcoming silence can be the premise of a new word. Every time stopped can become time for grace, if we offer it to God.

Jesus, buried on earth, is the meek face of a God who does not occupy all space. He is the God who lets him do, who hopes, retires to leave us freedom. It is the God who trusts, also when everything seems finished. And we, on that Saturday detained, learn that we are not in a hurry to resurface: first it is necessary to rest, welcome the silence, let yourself be hugged by the limit. Sometimes we look for quick responses, immediate solutions. But God works deeply, in the slow time of trust. On Saturday of the grave thus becomes the bowels of which the forces of an invincible light, that of Easter.

Dear friends, Christian hope is not born in noise, but in the silence of a wait inhabited by love. She is not the daughter of euphoria, but of a confident abandonment. The Virgin Mary teaches us: She embodies this wait, this hope, this trust. When it seems that everything is stopped, that life is an interrupted path, let’s remember the Holy Saturday. Also in the grave, God is preparing the biggest surprise. And if we know how to gratitude that happened, we will discover that, precisely in smallness, and in silence, God loves to transfigure reality by doing new things with the fidelity of his love. True joy is born from the inhabited waiting, of patient faith, of hope that how much has lived in love, certainly will resurface eternal life.