Monarch caterpillars who found their way to the bottom of our outdoor table to make chrysalises for a period of rest and hiddenness before emerging in their metamorphosed form.
We struggle to stop and rest. We live as if life were never enough. We rush to produce, to prove ourselves, to keep up. But the Gospel teaches us that knowing how to stop is an act of trust that we must learn to perform. Holy Saturday invites us to discover that life does not always depend on what we do, but also on how we know how to take leave of what we have been able to do.
In the tomb, Jesus, the living Word of the Father, is silent. But it is precisely in that silence that the new life begins to ferment. Like a seed in the ground, like the darkness before dawn.
—Pope Leo XIV, General Audience, September 17, 2025
Don’t you just love Pope Leo? When I saw a clip of him preaching this General Audience catechesis on Instagram, it made me stop. I watched the short clip two, three times, and then looked up his whole reflection.
Though the entire above passage is ripe with wisdom and imagery, this sentence continues to grow for me: “We live as if life were never enough.”
“We live as if life were never enough.”
As I turn this phrase over in my heart and mind, like turning over soil before planting, different thoughts and questions arise:
What does it look like for life to be enough?
How often do I live as though a season of life is simply one to get through until I get to the season I’ve been waiting for?
How often do I live as though pushing harder, producing more, and controlling more will make the next (more desirable) season come sooner?
Do I believe I can stop (unnecessary) production and my life will still be enough?
Is there anything in my life that I can “take leave of” in order to create space for new life that only God can bring about?
It often feels safer to produce and strive—in whatever area that might be. As a professional, a parent, a student, etc.
Striving for goodness and greatness is not bad—it is actually very good. It can become disordered striving, though, when we do so without first consulting God, when we stop listening to the Holy Spirit in our lives.
As people on the road of discipleship, we desire to listen to the Holy Spirit, to do God’s will. And still, it requires discipline and trust because we so easily fill our lives with to-dos.
At the beginning of Lent, it may be an apt time for us to check our to-dos, our schedules, our daily rhythms, and ask, “God, do you want me to set anything down in order to rediscover your presence with me?”
And pray, “God help me to listen to you. Give me peace when I start feel fearful of missing out or of not doing enough. Help me to trust in your time and your ways.”
Pope Leo reassures us, using the image of Holy Saturday and Christ waiting in the tomb. He says:
God is not afraid of the passing time, because he is also the God of waiting. Thus, even our ‘useless’ time, that of pauses, emptiness, barren moments, can become the womb of resurrection.
It is a mercy when we discover that God does not abandon us for our lack of productivity, but rather embraces us like warm earth around a seed that waits to grow. An embrace around us, a spark of new life within us—this is the marvelous work of our God, Gardener of Souls.
Pick up a copy of my book, The Restless Grain, which ends with Jesus at the Last Supper! There’s also an unleavened bread recipe at the back of the book to bring the Last Supper to life in a hands-on way.
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