Fr. Thomas M. Pastorius
April 13, 2014
Spiritual Ponderings
The Seven Last Words

For the month of April we are exploring the Seven Last Words of Christ upon the Cross. As we reflect upon Jesus' word we discover one of God's most elegant sermons on the meaning of love. Fulton Sheen puts it this way: "There is no escaping the Cross no even by denying it as the Pharisees did; not even by selling Christ as Judas did; not even by crucifying Him as the executioners did. We all see it either to embrace it in salvation, or to fly from it into misery."

2. Woman here is your son? Here is your mother. ? John 19:26-27
The first thought that comes to my mind is how much more painful the Crucifixion had to be for Jesus because as He looked down upon the Cross He kept seeing His mother in such pain and he knew that at this moment there was nothing He could do to alleviate her pain. I know the most intense pain and sorrow I have felt in my life has not come from anything done to me but rather the most severe pain and sorrow comes from watching a love one suffer and knowing that there is little I can do to ease his or her pain. Oh how Jesus must have suffered watching Mary suffer?

The second thought is the utmost poverty Jesus shows us at this moment. He has held nothing back. He has no physical possessions including clothes. He does not even have a good reputation as He is crucified as a common criminal despite his innocence. All Jesus really has at this moment is His relationships and at this moment He gives them away.

The third thought is that Jesus did not preserve Mary from this moment. He who kept His mother from sin did not keep her from this painful moment. This is how much He loves us for He makes her His last gift to us. He knows that we will need a guide, a role model, a protectress, and He knows the best person for that job is His own mother and so He gives us Mary to be our Mother.

3. I am thirsty. ? John 19:28
Just staring at a crucifix tells us a lot about how painful being nailed to two pieces of wood can be. When you lift the person up on and have the cross stand in the air the pain reaches a whole new level as the person on the cross strives to be kept breathing. I am sure that this a certain amount of thirst in a person would develop.

The thirst though that Jesus has I believe goes beyond just a physical thirst in two ways. The first way thing that Jesus is thirsting for is us. He is the true God who thirsts to be with His creation. Pope Benedict XVI's first encyclical Deus Est Caritas, which means "God is Love," Benedict XVI helps us understand the seven classical meanings of the word love. In a special way he focuses on "Eros" love and "agape" love. Eros is a love that desires to possess the thing that is being loved. Agape love on the other hand desires what is best for the other person even if it requires a sacrifice on our part even if that sacrifice means letting go of the thing we love. Pope Benedict in his writings explains how in God both Eros and agape love meet and purify each other. Our God therefore is not some caring deity who simply wants to be with us because we happen to be here. Our God passionately, avidly, single-mindedly desires to be with us because He loves us that much. He literally thirsts for us. On the other hand because God is more than Eros love and includes agape love we know that God is not some sort of crazed stalker. He will always do what is best for us because He will always make whatever sacrifice is necessary to show us his love even if that means allowing us to walk away.

On the other hand, I think Jesus is thirsting as a human being thirsts for God. Jesus is now taking on and becoming sin and what is sin but alienation from God. Jesus therefore makes the statement that He is thirsting because He is thirsting for God. The truth of the matter is that we all have a whole in our soul that only God can fill and so being human in one sense means to thirst for God. The problem with life is that often we try to fill that hole with other things that are not God and we get into trouble and addictions form.

I am going to conclude with some more Fulton Sheen: "Man rejected God; so now He willed to feel that rejection. Man turned away from God; now He, Who was God united personally with a human nature, willed to feel in that human nature that awful wrench as if He Himself were guilty of it."