March 29, 2026 Essay: The Silences of Holy Week
Silence remains a scarce commodity in our culture of noise, yet the story of Holy Week overflows with powerful, poignant silences. Jesus meets his antagonists and accusers with a frighteningly dignified silence. Mary stands by the cross with a ponderous silence that beholds the horror of that momentous and terrible hour. All of creation waits in the silence of Holy Saturday—the silence of the grave, a liminal space where what was is no more, and something new is waiting to be born. Each of these holds an invitation, a gentle call to enter into soulful silence as we journey again with Jesus through his final hours. Contemplating these silences opens a receptive space in the heart for the wisdom and grace of the Triduum.
The stoic silence of Jesus punctuates the passion narratives. Consider these arresting scenes: “Then the high priest stood up before them and asked Jesus, ‘Have you no answer? What is it that they testify against you?’ But he remained silent…” (Mark 14:60-61). “[Pilate] entered his headquarters again and said to Jesus, ‘Where are you from?’ But Jesus gave him no answer” (John 19:9). “So [Herod] questioned him at some length, but he made no answer” (Luke 23:9). Jesus role-models the silence of dignity, of patience, of acceptance, of surrendering control, of foregoing his life of activity to embrace death with solemn passivity. This is a silence that absorbs hatred and scapegoating, then filters back love that wordlessly expresses, “Forgive them, for they know not what they do.” It is the resolved, resigned stillness of the hospice patient who has made peace with what is happening, prepared to offer the way he dies as his final gift to the world.
Mary witnesses the horror of the cross in silence. She does not protest, nor attack the executioners. There are no words in such moments. Perhaps she recalls the wisdom of the Book of Lamentations, “Let him put his mouth to the dust…” and realizes she can only wait. She sees that evil is having its day, that resistance is useless, that violence, in this moment, has scored a cheap victory. Paradoxically through her silence, she does protest. She resists, she defies by refusing to be seduced into returning hate for hate. Mary comes full circle, pondering this stunning, ultimate moment, as she did when the angel asked her to bear the divine child. She role-models carrying tension with integrity. Though she cannot understand, she abides, persists, living the wisdom that holding uncertainty with trust can lead to unimaginable possibilities. Her silence communicates grief, audacity, contemplation, hope.
The vigil at the tomb bears witness to pregnant silence, to the silence of threshold spaces, moments of liminality when something new is about to be birthed, yet quiet patience is the only option. The silence of Holy Saturday carries a powerful emotional charge because the old certitudes are gone and the small world has collapsed, yet the bigger world cannot quite be grasped. Here we have no choice but to sit in the silence of God’s waiting room. It’s like anticipating the butterfly’s emergence from the cocoon or the flower’s blooming—there is nothing we can do to hasten the moment. In keeping our silence on Holy Saturday, we articulate our trust in the gentle, quiet work of a loving power much greater than anything we can fathom.
As Holy Week unfolds, I invite you to carve out space for these silences. Perhaps fast from news and social media for a few days, practice Centering Prayer, or sit quietly with a verse from scripture and let it gently rest on your heart. God waits for us in these intentionally quiet moments, for as the great mystic Meister Eckhart taught, “Nothing resembles the language of heaven so much as silence.” Sojourning in the silence of Jesus, of Mary, of Saturday’s tomb, we orient ourselves in attentiveness to God’s word, the word that opens the heart to the transformative, empowering graces of Easter.
— Brian Pinter, Pastoral Associate