READ: DAY SEVEN | THE SEVEN LAST WORDS OF CHRIST FROM THE CROSS w/ BISHOP BOYEA: Today is Good Friday. Today we prayerfully accompany Jesus Christ to Calvary where he will be crucified to death for the love of you and me, and we we will venerate his Holy Cross.
“Adoramus te, Christe, et benedicimus tibi, quia per sanctam crucem tuam redemisti mundum.”
“We adore you, O Christ, and we bless you, because by your holy cross you have redeemed the world”.
Today Bishop Earl Boyea of Lansing concludes his daily meditations upon the last seven words of Jesus Christ from the Cross. Today: “Father, into your hands I commend by spirit!” (Luke 23:46). Bishop Boyea writes:
Luke has three sayings of Jesus not found in the other Gospels: “Father, forgive them, they know not what they do,” “Today you will be with me in Paradise,” and “Father, into your hands I commend my spirit.” It is this last phrase which I would like to reflect upon briefly. This phrase is placed between the lines “Jesus cried out in a loud voice” and then “and when he had said this he breathed his last.” In a sense, Luke gives us the content of that cry which is mentioned in Matthew and Mark and which really captures the giving forth of Jesus’ last breath. Recall on the day of the Resurrection Jesus will appear to his disciples in the locked upper room and he will breathe on them and tell them, “Receive the Holy Spirit.” That spirit which Jesus breathed on the cross and in the upper room was our very life. Just as God breathed into the clay in the Book of Genesis and so gave life to man, so Jesus breathes his spirit into us, something he is only able to do as a result of his death and resurrection.
The great gift of God’s life, God’s grace, the divine Holy Spirit, comes to us only at a great cost, the pouring forth of the blood of the Lamb of God. This is a tremendous act of love and the supreme act of dedication, the giving of his all in his humanity.
This follows so clearly from his whole life: all that he had done in his earthly life was at the command of the Father and was directed to the Father. Here at the very end of that life, he returns all that he is to the Father. For this is the meaning of the life of the Son of God.But notice also that this gift of Jesus is a free gift, one HE makes. Recall his words from the Gospel of John (10:17): “I lay down my life, that I may take if up again. No one takes it from me, but I lay it down of my own accord.” He commends his spirit to the Father for our benefit.
This act of Jesus shows his tremendous trust in His Father. Jesus has completed his task and now he does not seek his own will but that all be given back to his Heavenly Father. Jesus gives everything to the Father who gave everything to him. The Venerable Bede notes: “by commending his spirit, he signifies not the weakness of his strength, but His confidence in the same power with the Father.”
My sisters and brothers, we are the recipients of this great Spirit of this Divine Person, Jesus Christ. As we enter into his Sacred Passion, Death, and Resurrection this Holy Week, let us commit ourselves yet again to live in that Spirit and be true brothers and sisters of the very Son of God.
