From the sixth hour of the day until the ninth hour, darkness covered the whole land.
This verse describes the supernatural darkness that occurred at the time of the crucifixion—a symbolic and divine reality that emphasized both the depth of the Lord’s suffering and creation’s universal response. From the sixth hour, about noon, until the ninth hour, about three o’clock, darkness covered the land. This darkness embodied the world’s spiritual gloom—the result of sin and ignorance—and at the same time it was a sign of the grief with which, by God’s will, nature itself expressed sorrow over the death of its Lord. It reminds us that when a person rejects God’s Light, darkness becomes inevitable, yet from that same darkness the light of the resurrection was also to rise.