The event is real, and the Lord’s abasement extreme: It is the abandonment of his Father, the abandonment of God. These are the only words of Jesus from the cross that have come down to us in the original language. To convey the impact of this, the Gospel also reports his words in Aramaic. Prior to that moment, he had never called the Father by his generic name, “God,” never. At his most tragic hour, Jesus experiences abandonment by God. This is the most searing of all sufferings, the suffering of the spirit. Before dying, he cries out: “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” Jesus’ abandonment. Now, however, the unthinkable has taken place. Yet, amid all these sorrows, Jesus remained certain of one thing: the closeness of the Father. There were also sufferings of the soul: the betrayal of Judas, the denials of Peter, the condemnation of the religious and civil authorities, the mockery of the guards, the jeering at the foot of the cross, the rejection of the crowd, utter failure and the flight of the disciples. There were sufferings of the body: we think of the slaps and beatings, flogging and the crowning with thorns, and in the end, the cruelty of the crucifixion. The sufferings of Jesus were so man, and whenever we listen to the account of the Passion, they pierce our hearts.
Those words bring us to the very heart of Christ’s passion, the culmination of the sufferings he endured for our salvation. Ps 22:2), the only cry that Jesus makes from the cross in the Gospel we have heard. This is the cry that today’s liturgy has us repeat in the responsorial psalm (cf. “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” (Mt 27:46). Pope Francis presided over Mass for Palm Sunday 2023 in St. Pope Francis presided over Palm Sunday Mass in St.
0 kommentar(er)
