Holy Saturday & The Cat Tied to the Altar

suffered under Pontius Pilate,
    was crucified, dead, and buried;

~ The Apostles' Creed

In Christain tradition, today is known as Holy Saturday. The story is told each year in worship: Jesus died on Friday and rose from death on Sunday. In between there is Saturday. Nothing happened on Saturday, unless you consider the followers of Jesus fearing their own arrest and hiding out.

There is a traditional Holy Saturday worship service called the Paschal Vigil that begins around 11:00 p.m. and lasts past midnight into Easter Sunday. The first congregation that I pastored was theologically aware enough to celebrate this service; the last congregation wouldn't. The church council rationalized that no one (meaning them) would attend, so why waste electricity on it.

So, unless one is into celebrating the Paschal Vigil, in the liturgy of the church nothing happens today.

I was thinking about the last sentence this morning as a read Enemy of the Republic's last blog post, entitled Religious Holidays. In her response to my comment on the post, she wrote:

I was raised to celebrate every holiday, told to believe whatever it was supposed to represent and what I saw was that people like to cling to tradition, but they rarely think on what it means.

She is so right! So many folks go through the motions of a tradition without ever thinking of its meaning or what the tradition represents. Even more questionable, folks and religions create traditions by misinterpreting something and making it into something that it is not.

My train of thought led me to a story that I have told several times. And, since today is Holy Saturday and there ain't really nothing happening, I want to share that story with you.

Many centuries ago there lived a holy man who became famous for his wisdom and mystical teachings. Students and spiritual seekers gathered around him, forming a community of disciples. Eventually they built a monasterial center where the community lived, studied, and worshiped.

Part of the center was a sanctuary where the holy man led worship each day. His students and disciples would gather there and their master would stand before the central altar from which he led the liturgical ritual.

Now the holy man owned a cat to whom he was greatly attached—possibly in the manner I am attached to Alex. Unfortunately, the holy man’s cat, being a cat, was self-serving and, much as with Alex, beyond anyone’s control. Thus, when the community gathered for worship, the cat would meander around the sanctuary, greatly disturbing the mediation and spiritual disciplines of the worshipers.

The holy man did not know what to do, especially since he had no influence on his cat’s behavior—just as I have no influence on Alex’s behavior. He did not want to put the cat out of the sanctuary because, being a cat, he would wail and meow and screech and scratch, thus being even more disturbing of the mediation and spiritual disciplines of the worshipers.

Finally, mediating with all of the wisdom and sagely expertise he possessed, the holy man came upon a solution. Before the next gathering of the community for worship, the holy man attached a rope to the cat’s collar and tied it securely around one of the legs of the altar. At first the cat cried and tested the rope. However, finally he accepted his karma and, with his master standing beside the altar, the cat simply curled up and napped throughout the service, which is as normal for cats when they are bored as it is for people. This worked well and the holy man continued to lead worship services with his beloved cat napping beside him, tied to the altar.

Several years later the holy man died a peaceful death. And the community elected a new holy man to lead and teach them. Then the cat died. And the community found a new cat to tie to the altar. And through the centuries prayers were developed to pray to the cat tied to the altar. And thousands of the pages of theological books were written explaining the significance and sacred meaning of having a cat tied to the altar.

And that’s the way it is. The original import and purpose of an act or belief becomes lost and redefined through time. And what was clear and simple becomes complex; the cat tied to the altar becomes what the act never was: sacred, ritual, and, eventually, dogma.

Let those who have ears to hear, hear.

Have a blessed Holy Saturday.