"My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?" | PadreCast Third Sunday of Lent

Father Miller will offer a reflection on the Seven Last Words of Christ throughout Lent.

 

According to Jesus, this is the most important thing He said on the cross. For our Lord, and therefore for each one of us, this statement is the most important message of all of these essential seven statements. We know this because the statement is a "chiasmus."

A chiasmus is a literary structure like an equation used in narratives to help point to important issues. Like a pyramid, everything in the narrative or in the sentence or in the story is pointing toward one single issue that the reader is supposed to focus upon.

How many last statements did our Lord make on the Cross? Seven. An odd number, which means the center, the one in the middle, is the focus. That's today.

Why would these be the most important words that the Lord speaks to each one of us from the cross? Jesus didn't actually believe the father had forsaken Him. So why say it?...

At the time of Christ, when rabbis would sit and discuss the Law and the prophets, this is how they would quote scripture: they would only quote the first verse of a passage and all the rabbis knew exactly what they were talking about.

Jesus is quoting Psalm 22 . Psalm 22 encapsulates everything our Lord wants us to learn from the Cross. ... It is the only thing that will console us, as it consoled our Lord. I encourage you, not only during Lent, but anytime that you suffer, to return to Psalm 22 and meditate on it.

 

Ex 20:1-17; Ps 19:8, 9, 10, 11; 1 Cor 1:22-25; Jn 2:13-25

 

You may watch the Mass in its entirety on our YouTube channel. Homily begins at 17:38