Online text: “Holy Saturday and the Harrowing of Hell”, by Dr. Lawrence Feingold

See this online text:

• “Holy Saturday and the Harrowing of Hell”, by Dr. Lawrence Feingold STD, Associate Professor of Theology and Philosophy, Kenrick-Glennon Seminary, Archdiocese of St. Louis, Missouri. (Saint Louis, MO: Association of Hebrew Catholics, 2010). This is Talk #7 of Series 6: Themes of the Incarnation, in the Association of Hebrew Catholics Lecture Series: The Mystery of Israel and the Church. The text of the lecture (in pdf format) and the audio of lecture (in mp3 format) together with the audio of questions and answers are available through this page of the Association of Hebrew Catholics.

See also these related texts and media on the mystery commemorated on Holy Saturday:

• “An Ancient Homily for Holy Saturday” (also entitled “A reading from an ancient homily for Holy Saturday”, and “The Lord’s descent into the underworld”).  The text may be read online on this page at St. John Cantius Parish; at the Holy See, prepared by Pontifical University Saint Thomas Aquinas; at Catholic Online; and on this page of Universalis (© 1996-2019 Universalis Publishing Limited), as part of the Office of Readings in the Ordinary Form of the Roman Rite for Holy Saturday. [N.B., Various pages attribute the text to Bishop Melito of Sardis or St. Epiphanius, Bishop of Cyprus. Its source is cited by St. John Cantius Parish as PG (Patrologia Graeca) 43, 440A, 452C.]
• “The Anguish of an Absence: Three Meditations on Holy Saturday”, by Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger (Pope Benedict XVI), 30 Days, Issue 03-2006. May be read online (on this page) at 30 Days.
• Easter Vigil Homily, by Pope Benedict XVI, on Holy Saturday, 7 April 2007. Available at the Holy See in  English, Deutsch, Español, Français, Italiano, e Portugues.
• “He Descended Into Hell”, by Pope John Paul II. General Audience on January 11, 1989. Taken from L’Osservatore Romano, Weekly Edition in English, 16 January 1989. May be read online on this page at Catholic Culture, and on this page of the Document and Audio Libraries of EWTN.
• “The Meaning Behind ‘He Descended into Hell’”, by Fr. William Saunders, O.P., April 13, 2017. May be read online on this page of Catholic Exchange and on this page of Catholic Straight Answers.

See these texts relating to the liturgy of Holy Saturday:

• Holy Saturday: Easter Vigil (2010), English/Latin with brief historical notes and commentary. Available in pdf format on this page linked by Pre-1955 Holy Week Resources and by LiveMass.net. According to Pre-1955 Holy Week Resources: “The Hebdomada Sancta (Holy Week) booklets… were created by a group of Franciscan Nuns in Italy in 2010 for their private use and devotional edification”.
• Holy Saturday, excerpted from Mass and Vespers, with Gregorian Chant for Sundays and Holy Days: Latin and English Text, edited by the Benedictines of the Solesmes Congregation (Paris, Tournai, Rome, New York: Desclee & Co., 1957), with Imprimatur. Available in pdf format through the post “Rough PDF • Rubrics & Music, Holy Saturday (1962)”, 4 April 2015, at Corpus Christi Watershed. [N.B., This relates to the Extraordinary Form of the Roman Rite.] [N.B.2, We have assumed that the text was lawfully made available online. Please advise us if this is incorrect so we may remove the offending link(s) if necessary.]
• “The Roman Missal and the Easter Vigil”. May be read online on this page at the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops. [N.B., This relates to the Ordinary Form of the Roman Rite.]
• Vespers with Divine Liturgy for Great and Holy Saturday (Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania: Metropolitan Cantor Institute – Byzantine Catholic Seminary March 2009. Available in pdf format at the Metropolitan Cantor Institute of the Byzantine Catholic Archeparchy of Pittsburgh. [N.B., This relates to the Rite of the Byzantine Catholic churches.]

Posted for Holy Saturday, 2020. For other texts and ebooks, you may access the List of Free eBooks (Arranged by Title), the List of Free eBooks (Grouped by Subject), the List of Worth-It Catholic Books & eBooks, and the main page of the Catholic eBooks Project.

“It was thus that Christ died as a ransom, paid once for all, on behalf of our sins, he the innocent for us the guilty, so as to present us in God’s sight. In his mortal nature he was done to death, but endowed with fresh life in his spirit, and it was in his spirit that he went and preached to the spirits who lay in prison… He sits, now, at the right hand of God, annihilating death, to make us heirs of eternal life; he has taken his journey to heaven, with all the angels and powers and princedoms made subject under his feet.” (1 Peter 3:17-19,22, formatting supplied)