Holy Saturday is the quietest day of the Liturgical year – the only day where the Church has no liturgy whatsoever.
For 363 days a year, Masses are celebrated, and on Good Friday, we have a liturgy (but it isn’t Mass). On Holy Saturday, the Church offers us silence. In the midst of a Holy Week retreat many years ago, I embraced that silence, where I came across an Ancient Homily for Holy Saturday in the Liturgy of the Hours. This homily began to explain why things are so quiet on Holy Saturday:
“Today there is a great silence over the earth, a great silence, and stillness, a great silence because the King sleeps; the earth was in terror and was still, because God slept in the flesh and raised up those who were sleeping from the ages. God has died in the flesh, and the underworld has trembled.”