The Seven Last Words, by Venerable Fulton John Sheen
The Fourth Word
My God! My God! Why hast thou forsaken Me?
The first three words from the pulpit of the Cross were addressed to the three predilections of God: enemies, sinners and saints. The next two words, the fourth and the fifth, betray the sufferings of the God-man on the Cross. The fourth word symbolizes the sufferings of man abandoned by God; the fifth word the sufferings of God abandoned by man.
When Our Blessed Lord spoke this fourth word from the Cross, darkness covered the earth. It is a common remark that nature is indifferent to our griefs. A nation may be dying of famine, yet the sun starts and plays upon the stricken fields. Brother may rise up against brother in a war which turns poppy fields into Haceldamas of blood, yet a bird, safe from the fire and shell, chants its little song of peace. Hearts may be broken by the loss of a friend, yet a rainbow leaps with joy across the heavens, making a terrible contrast between its smile and the agony it shines upon. But the sun refused to shine on the crucifixion! The light that rules the day, probably for the first and last time in history, was snuffed out like a candle when, according to every human calculation, it should have continued to shine. The reason was that the crowning crime of man, the killing of nature's Lord, could not pass without a protest from nature itself. If the soul of God were in darkness, so should be the sun which He had made.
Truly, all was darkness! He had given up His Mother and His beloved disciple, and now God seemingly abandons Him. "Eli, Eli, 1amma sabactheni?" "My God! My God! Why hast Thou forsaken Me?" It is a cry in the mysterious language of Hebrew to express the tremendous mystery of a God "abandoned" by God. The Son calls His Father, God. What a contrast with a prayer He once taught: "Our Father, Who art in Heaven!" In some strange,, mysterious way His human nature seems separated from His Heavenly Father, and yet not separated, for otherwise how could He cry, "My God, My God?" But just as the sun's light and heat can be withdrawn from us by the intervening clouds, though the sun remains in the sky, so there was a kind of withdrawal of His Father's Face in the terrible moment in which He takes upon Himself the sins of the world.. This pain and desolation He suffered for each of us, that we might know what a terrible thing it is for human nature to be without God, to be deprived of a Divine Remedy and Consolation. It was the supreme act of atonement for those who abandon God, and those who doubt the presence of God.
He atones first of all for atheists, for those who on that dark mid-day half believed in God, as even now at night they half believe in Him. He atoned also for those who know God, but live as if they had never heard His name; for those whose hearts are like waysides on which God's love falls only to be trampled by the world; for those who have had faith and lost it; for those who once were saints and now are sinners. It was the Divine Act of Redemption for all abandonment of God, for in that moment in which He was forgotten, He purchased for us the grace of never being forgotten by God. It was also the atonement for that other class who deny the presence of God, for all those Christians who abandon all effort when they cannot feel God near them, for all who identify being good with feeling good, for all those skeptics beginning with the first who asked, "Why has God commanded you?" - it was reparation for all the haunting questions of a doubting world: "Why is there evil?" . . . "Why does God not answer my prayers?" . . . "Why did God take away my mother?" . . . "why" . . . "why" . . . "why" . . . and the reparation for all those queries was made when God asked a "why" of God.
Prayer
Jesus, Thou art now atoning for those moments when we are neither hot nor cold, members neither of heaven nor of earth, for now Thou art suffering between the two: rejected by the one, abandoned by the other. Because Thou wouldst not give up sinful humanity, Thy Heavenly Father hid His Face from Thee. Because Thou wouldst not give up The Heavenly Father, sinful humanity turned its back to Thee. And thus in holy fellowship Thou didst unite us both. No longer can men say that God does not know what a heart suffers in abandonment, for now Thou art abandoned. No longer can men complain that God does not know the wounds of an inquiring heart which feels not the Divine Presence, for now that sweet Presence is seemingly hid from Thee. Jesus, now I understand pain, abandonment, and suffering, for I see that even the sun has its eclipse. But Jesus, why do I not learn? Teach me that just as Thou didst not make Thy own Cross, neither shall I make my own, but accept the one Thou makest for me. Tell me, how long, how long, O Lord, will I keep Thee writhing on the Cross?
