Ignatian Spirituality

During the hours when Jesus hung on the cross leading up to his death, he uttered seven “words” (actually short sentences, as recorded across the four gospels), and these words continue to be meaningful and insightful to us today if we’re willing to spend some time in quiet with them. For they are not only remembrances of that day and of Jesus’ suffering and death, but also serve as reminders of how we are to live in our own moments of suffering. As we enter Holy Week, I offer seven short reflections on these words and ask you to consider what they might mean to you, today.

Four: “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” Mark 15:33-34

It was perhaps Earth’s darkest three hours ever, from noon to three o’clock on that first Good Friday, when the world was draped in a gray veil and Jesus hung heavy and nearly lifeless on the cross, his life slowly ebbing away and his breathing labored and weak. It is the man Jesus — the human just like us — who cries out loudly these words of hopelessness and utter dejection: “Eloi, Eloi, lema sabachthani?” which is translated, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”

They are words prayed in fulfillment of the psalms (Psalm 22) that he certainly heard as an attentive young man in the temple:

My God, my God, why have you abandoned me?
Why so far from my call for help, from my cries of anguish?
My God, I call by day, but you do not answer;
by night, but I have no relief.

But this was no mere repetition of a childhood prayer in a moment of anguish. For he had good reason to wonder where God was. After all, he had done everything right. He was certainly innocent of these so-called crimes. He knew the Father loved him and approved of his life and ministry. His miracles and healings and feeding of thousands were the work of the Father through him. He had never been alone before.

Yet even as he knew all this, even as he was accomplishing and fulfilling the purpose for which he became “Emmanuel,” he feels the emptiness and pain of being a man seemingly forgotten — the suffering servant of God. With the weight of the world on him, he was still “man enough” to feel like a man, to sense abandonment by the One who loved and sent him. He can’t help but ask the question: Why?

Because he is fully man, no pain escapes him. The suffering is as real for him as it will be for us. As we come face to face with our own moments of pain and death, we, too, may be pushed to the brink of doubt and faith, seemingly forsaken by the One who loved and created us. And we will not be able to not ask the same question: Why? Why come so far to end like this? Why here and why now? Why, God, if in fact you are God…

For when it comes to pain, suffering and death, we don’t get a “get out of jail free card” because of our faith. Faith in Christ doesn’t promise us “easy,” but it does promise us what Jesus came to experience in the fullness time — life in the eternal presence of God.

Ask yourself in silence: When have I felt forsaken? When have I felt the eternal presence of God?

Tomorrow: Thirsty

During the hours when Jesus hung on the cross leading up to his death, he uttered seven “words” (actually short sentences, as recorded across the four gospels), and these words continue to be meaningful and insightful to us today if we’re willing to spend some time in quiet with them. For they are not only remembrances of that day and of Jesus’ suffering and death, but also serve as reminders of how we are to live in our own moments of suffering. As we enter Holy Week, I offer seven short reflections on these words and ask you to consider what they might mean to you, today.

Three: “Woman, behold your son. Behold your mother.” John 19:25-27

Jesus looks down from the cross and sees what must be a son’s worst nightmare — his mother, watching him suffer and die. Standing there with her friends, close relatives and his beloved disciple (John), his thoughts turn from his death to their life, to their care for one another. Looking at his mother, he says, “Woman, behold your son.” And to John, “behold your mother.” He knew those were all the words he needed to say. He knew from that day on she would be cared for and revered by John and the early Church community. She was to be blessed indeed.

As I read and contemplated this passage today, the phrase “no mother should bury a child” kept coming to mind. I wondered to myself, where is the greater pain: in the mother watching her son die or in the son watching his mother watch him die? For us all, the pain of death can be so intense that we find ourselves asking (or screaming), “why God?” We hurt so much because we love so much, of course, because even as the life we love so much slips away we already feel the loss of relationship and presence.

Certainly Jesus knew the pain his mother was feeling, knew that she needed to be cared for in a society where widows and motherless children were often ignored or worse. So he did the best he could for her in offering her the companionship of John. Jesus neither asks nor commands John about this task; he simply and gently presents them to one another.

As we walk our Christian life, we are called to be more aware of one another. We are asked to “behold” one another, for certainly there are those in our life — whether we are aware or not — who are suffering and in need of our attention. Indeed, perhaps what they most need is for us to simply see — behold — them.

It is this same interaction of beholding that St. Ignatius uses to describe our prayer and relationship with God. When we enter into prayer, he suggests that we “consider God considering us.” As I write this the world once more is grieving over the killing of so many innocents in Belgium, so as we pray tonight we offer up a prayer especially for all those affected. We ask God to consider them, to behold them and gather them into his arms.

Ask yourself in silence: Who needs me to behold them today?

Tomorrow: Forsaken