Ponder the Teacher’s final lecture as Saint Bonaventure and Arnold of Bonneval lead you through meditations on the fourth word of Christ. Taken from The Seven Last Words of Christ, this excerpt will move even the hardest of hearts to sincere conversion.
Saint Bonaventure’s Meditation on the Fourth Word
The fourth leaf upon the mystical vine, or the fourth string upon our spiritual lyre, is the fourth utterance of Christ, when “at about the ninth hour Jesus cried out with a loud voice, saying: ‘Eli, Eli, lamma sabacthani?’, that is, ‘My God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken Me?’” What eye can claim not to have perceived this leaf, and what ear may deny having heard the powerful resonance of this string? Why should Jesus have “cried out” this utterance, except to ensure that it should be clearly heard by all? And how overwhelmingly immense must have been the bitter pain which Our Lord experienced in crying out in such a manner, when His body was cruelly stretched out upon the wood of the cross!
But beware, O reader, that you do not imagine that Our Lord Jesus Christ said these words as if He resented what He was enduring! He continued to persevere throughout His most dire passion in perfect, unprotesting patience. His words therefore do not express complaint or resistance, but rather reveal the stupendous magnitude of His agony.
These words are spoken in the Person of Christ’s humanity. This genuine humanity was, nevertheless, absolutely and always one with His divine Sonship, as His words, “My God,” mysteriously reveal.
Why was it that He said, “Why hast Thou forsaken Me?” Was the Father ever able to abandon His only-begotten Son? Certainly not! But Christ speaks here on behalf of His whole body—that is, the entire Church. Wishing to affirm the value of unity and charity, He shows Himself to be united to all the suffering members of the Church, and to be united in compassion with all those who feel abandoned. He who was not able to be abandoned declares Himself to be abandoned, for He grasps the immensity of the sufferings which shall befall a multitude of the members of His Church, and who (for a time) shall seem to have been abandoned.
O Jesus, wisdom and strength of the unbegotten
Father!
Constancy and might of the unseen God!
With miraculous power, You multiplied loaves for
the multitude;
With the same divine potency, even as a small
infant,
You summoned a star to guide the Magi.
You raise the dead to life, healed the afflicted,
And cast out demons by Your word.
It was You who had created, by this very same word,
The earth out of nothingness so many eons ago.
But now, You are cruelly affixed to a cross.
In obedience to the Father, You are constrained,
And suffer more grievously than any human being
has ever suffered before,
Or ever shall suffer.
Though Your divinity is unimpaired and
undiminished,
Yet Your mortal nature cries out in anguish,
And thus, with resonant fervor and heartfelt pain,
You give forth a poignant lament on behalf of all
mankind:
“My God, My God, why has Thou forsaken Me?”
Arnold’s Commentary on the Fourth Word
As Christ hung from the cross, dying and in agony, the crowd continued to insult and mock Him cruelly and unrelentingly. They exclaimed, “Ah! You claimed you could destroy the temple and in three days raise it up again. Well then, save yourself!” Witness how the common people had readily fallen under the sway of the error and malice of the high priests and Pharisees. For these hypocrites had cunningly conspired to bring about the death of Jesus, in the vain hope of utterly deleting His name and His memory. And as for the crowd, they had no hesitation in taking the appalling responsibility of His holy and innocent blood upon their own heads, and upon those of their children.
Yet even then, Jesus looked upon the wicked crowd with eyes of tender mercy. In His heart, He sincerely desired their forgiveness and prayed to the Father accordingly. He hoped that the radiant charity of the Son could prevail over the dark blindness of the people. And yet, these people were not destined to be forgiven. For though the mercy of God is infinite, it cannot be efficacious where there is an adamant refusal to accept it—as was manifestly the case here. This refusal to accept the mercy of God rendered even Christ’s self-emptying humility to be without result, as far as the obdurate and unfeeling crowd was concerned. It meant that His precious blood, a single drop of which had the power to save the entire universe, could not save these unrepentant and cruel scorners.
And it was for this reason alone—since His burning desire to bestow mercy had been frustrated and rejected—that He cried out, “Eli, Eli, lamma sabacthani? My God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken Me?” Certainly, Christ did not cry out to the Father as one complaining on His own behalf, as if He was protesting against His own agonies and pains. For He had willingly and bravely stretched out His arms upon the cross a little earlier, and offered His hands and feet to the piercing incisions of the iron nails without the slightest complaint or demur. Such, indeed, was His perfect submission to the will of the Father, whichwas both the foundation and the culmination of His obedience. And by this perfect submission He revealed Himself simultaneously as both one who completely and utterly emptied Himself of His heavenly splendor, and yet who remained always and supremely equal to and united with the unseen Godhead.
In this regard, true humility and eternal majesty were inseparably and eternally united and bound together. The total submission which Christ exhibited, which to the Jews appeared to be weakness and to the Greeks seemed like madness, shows itself to be, in fact, wiser than any human wisdom and stronger than any human strength.
When Christ said “My God, my God, why hast Thou forsaken Me?”, He addresses the Father as “My God.” Yet in saying this, no one should imagine that He was speaking to the divinity of the Father as if it were separate from Himself. For this divinity was one, just as the God, whom Christ addresses as “My God,” was identical with Himself. For the common and shared divine nature of the Father and the Son does not admit any division or separation. While there is a distinction of Person, there is only ever one divinity and one divine essence.
By calling the Father “My God,” Jesus reveals and expresses the mystery of this unity—that the divinity of the Father is also truly His divinity. And thus there is no possible contradiction or divergence between the will of the Father and the will of the Son, and whatever the Son asks of the Father will necessarily be granted.
In this respect, Christ teaches us to have confidence in facing the judgment of God. For the Son, who is our advocate and who implores for our forgiveness, is perfectly united in will and nature with the One who is the judge. Thus the mercy of the Son shall always prevail in securing forgiveness and pardon, for whosoever sincerely desires to be forgiven and pardoned.
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This article is taken from a chapter in The Seven Last Words of Christ by Saint Bonaventure & Arnold of Bonneval which is available from TAN Books.
