We need to always keep in mind that Good Friday, Holy Saturday, and Easter Sunday belong together.  Each one makes no sense for the Christian if taken in isolation from the rest.  Von Balthasar explains further the amazement we must have when we contemplate these three days. The contemplative is free to ponder ever anew this transformation which is the foundation and prerequisite of all subsequent transformation within the Church. He can compare the Word of God in his humble, fleshly form, as the gospel portrays him, with his glorified form after resurrection and ascension, as he appears in his self-testimony from heaven through the Holy Spirit, and as he appears in the Church's proclamation .in word, theology, and in Christian life and martyrium. Each time it is a very particular, clearly defined humility and humiliation which blossoms forth and yields fruit in glory in such an astounding way, making a shattering impression upon the gazing contemplative. The yawning abyss of death and the descent into hell interrupts contemplation, but he is carried beyond them. Everything pertaining to the senses is swallowed up in the abyss, taking with it the life, the hopes and the outlook of the old man. Then, in some unimaginable place beyond everything, all things begin again, in a heavenly newness which is without beginning or end. Above the abyss of death and hell waves the seven-hued banner of reconciliation, of the "everlasting covenant between God and every living creature ... that is upon the earth" (Gen 9:16). This may give us a better idea of the importance of  Jesus' linking the two ends together by his word of promise and thus lending eternal significance and influence to all "fleshly" process as it hurries to its end. 

The Gospels are silent about what happened on Holy Saturday.  We cannot accompany the Lord through Holy Saturday.   However, we can follow Him through Holy Saturday.   St. Paul tells us that we passed through Holy Saturday when we were baptized.  “You have been buried with him, when you were baptized; and by baptism, too, you have been raised up with him through your belief in the power of God who raised him from the dead.” (Col 2:12).  Von Balthasar tells us more about the “bridge” between Good Friday and Easter Sunday. Our simultaneous contemplation of the heavenly and the earthly Christ also involves the element of representation", of vicarious action. For the vaulting bridge which links one shore to the other means that we are spared the descent into hell. We are regarded as having undergone it in baptism; it lies behind us (Rom 6:3 f). Due to this grace the Church is able to pursue her contemplation even on Holy Saturday - which at first sight seems improbable. For the Church "outlives" the Lord and, by a power which comes in anticipation of his resurrection, erects the bridge of faith, of love and of hope over the abyss. But at the same time she comes to a deeper and deeper awareness, through contemplation, that this same grace implies an embryonic participation in death and the descent to Hades, not only at the sacramental level but also at the spiritual and contemplative level. If the Church is to follow Christ and grow in understanding as a result, her faith, hope and love must undergo a death and a darkness, if not at the level of the institution (which is not touched by it), then in the individuals who constitute the Church: "Where I am going you cannot follow me now; but you shall follow afterward" (Jn 13:36); "Follow me" (Jn 21:19). 

Next, Von Balthasar explains that the passion, death and resurrection of Our Lord is not unrelated to our own lives as Christians. In the life of Jesus and in the contemplative's faith, therefore, the absolute transformation from the old to the new aeon does cast its shadow, albeit in a more nuanced way, on earthly life and contemplation. We see it in instances of persecution, weariness, failure, betrayal; in the baffling, increasing hatred which the Lord and his disciples have to face; all these are signs heralding the coming storm, and thus they all have a salvific meaning. The "once-for-all" of the cross comprehends all the "gradual" process of his antecedent life. The Lord's everyday life also contains a cross, and he bids us too to "take up our cross daily" (Lk 9:23); for him and for us there is a daily dying of the old man and a daily renewal of the new man (2 Cor 4:16; cf. Eph 4:22-24; Col 3:9-10). This "gradual"  aspect - and by no means will the contemplative be allowed to forget the other aspect, the "once-for-all" (Rom 6:10; Heb 7:27 passim), the "irrevocable" (Rom 11:29; Heb 6:17) - is a further stage, through grace, in the understanding of atonement. It is as if the disciple is taken in slow motion through those parts which he can grasp and which he needs to know. All the time, however, he must be aware that the larger portions (the cross, not to mention the Lord's descent into hell) will always remain hidden in the darkness of God's judging and redeeming love. Vicarious suffering always implies that those on whose behalf it takes place, i.e., who are spared the full force of the experience, must also renounce the inner, experiential understanding of what has taken place; they must leave that - out of love - to the Beloved.

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The "slow motion" process continues, getting as close as possible to the Lord's Passion and death. This is still the experience of a human life, performed with failing human strength; Christ has the entirely human experience of being stretched beyond his limits, accompanied by an increasing interior darkness in which he "no longer understands". The series of scenes which make up the Passion only give a very indirect indication of the Lord's crucial inner dispositions; they direct our attention almost exclusively to the sinful participants - Christians, Jews, Gentiles - and show the Lord as a passive plaything in their hands. Thus holy scripture seems to show little regard for the observer outside the door, listening, while inside, in the inner room, undisclosed negotiations are going on between God's righteousness and his mercy. All the same, this hard, liturgically objective, official account of the Passion is full of openings, hints and pointers which faith can follow up. They are like seeds patiently planted and nurtured in the mind; eventually they put forth shoots, and the sinner, wholesomely humbled, receives infinitely more than he deserves. …………..The person who has been humiliated will see the points at which his experience can be integrated into the total humiliation of the Son of Man; the person who no longer understands God may still be able to understand, perhaps, that even the Son of God no longer understands why the Father has forsaken him.

We need always to recognize that just as we do not understand why evil seems to triumph, Jesus Christ is with us even there.   He went through it all.  “My God, my God, why have you deserted me?” (Mt 27:46).  Yet we know that His “defeat” was not the end of the story.   The Resurrection shows us what happens when we obey the Father to the end.  The crucifixion, as well as the deaths of all the martyrs who followed the Lord, shows us how costly this obedience can be. – Jim Nugent, CFP