Holy Saturday

Holy Saturday occupies a threshold in the village’s religious year: the Lenten fast and Holy Week observances have not yet given way to Easter, but preparations for the feast are already under way. Its customs bring the sacred calendar into ordinary household life through food, sound, and shared attendance at church.

Food and the Easter Feast

On Holy Saturday, baskets of food are taken to be blessed. The custom links the day’s observance to the meal that follows: an earlier practice was to eat the blessed food directly after the midnight Resurrection Mass, beginning with the sharing of blessed eggs. The blessing thus stands between fasting and feasting, giving ordinary provisions a place in the passage from Lent to Easter.

Silence and the Call to Church

The bells fall silent during Holy Week, and the organ also ceases to play. Instead, wooden rattles or clappers summon the faithful to services on Good Friday and Holy Saturday; boys add their own noise to the call. The change in sound makes the day’s place in the liturgical sequence audible: the village does not stop gathering, but its familiar signals are replaced by a rougher, more subdued summons.

A Threshold in the Village Calendar

Together, the food blessing and the altered church sound distinguish Holy Saturday from both the austerity of the preceding fast and Easter’s celebration. The day is a time of preparation enacted collectively: households bring food for blessing, and villagers respond to the rattles calling them to church. In this way, the calendar is not merely named but practiced through shared actions that carry the community from Holy Week toward the Resurrection feast.