Preview: "I Thirst" and "It Is Finished" on the Son Rise Morning Show

In our last discussion on the Son Rise Morning Show, Matt Swaim quite rightly pointed out that the psalm Our Lord began on the Cross, Psalm 22, ends in hope:

31 And to him my soul shall live: and my seed shall serve him.

32 There shall be declared to the Lord a generation to come: and the heavens shall shew forth his justice to a people that shall be born, which the Lord hath made. (Psalm 21 in the Douay-Rheims 1899 American Edition)

Monsignor Robert Hugh Benson, however, does not go there immediately; he leaves Our Lord in the midst of that chosen desolation, until He endures another humiliation, which we'll discuss on Monday, March 23: 

As Benson puts it: 

Up to the present the deepest point of Christ's Humiliation has been His cry to His Father -- that call for help by the Sacred Humanity which by His own Will was left derelict -- His confession to the world that His Soul was in darkness. Now, however, He descends a still deeper step of humiliation, and calls for help, to man.

Christ asks man to help Him!

The fifth Last Word is "I thirst". (John 19:28) 

All through His life He had offered help: He had fed hungry souls and hungry bodies He had opened blind eyes and deaf ears; and lifted up the hands that hung down, and strengthened the feeble knees. He had stood in the Temple and called to all that thirsted to come and drink. Now, in return, He asks for drink, and accepts it. So David, too, in the stress of battle had cried, "Oh that some man would give me a drink of the water out of the cistern that is in Bethlehem!"{1} For both David and David's Son were strong enough to condescend to weakness.

(ii) In the age-long Calvary of the world's history, Jesus cries on man to help Him; and the Giver of all humiliates Himself to ask.

In the context of Benson's meditation on the Friendship of Christ, he reminds that we are not equal partners in this relationship:

We have spoken of the Divine Friendship throughout as if it were a mutual relationship, as if we on one side, and Christ on the other, were united in a common bond. But, as a matter of fact, it is all on one side. We cannot even desire Christ without, except by the help of Christ within. The Christ within must cry "I thirst,"{2} before the Christ without can give us the Living Water.

This appeal, then, of Jesus must be our last and final motive, when all other impulses have failed. He is so beaten and rejected that He is come even to this. He must ask for mercy upon Himself, before He can have mercy on us. If we do not find our Heaven in Him, at least let Him find His Heaven in us. If we can no longer say, "My soul is athirst for the Living God," at least let us listen when the Living God cries, "My Soul is athirst for you." If we will not let Him minister to us, for very shame let us be content to minister to Him.

And then Benson references one of the Gospel stories we've heard this Lent: The Woman at the Well of Sychar:

He first uttered His petition, by the side of Jacob's well, and on the Cross of Calvary -- even the Samaritan woman, the alien from God's commonwealth, even the soldiers of an Empire that was at war with God's kingdom, had mercy upon Him, and gave Him to drink.

In Saint John's Gospel as soon as He has tasted the common wine on the sponge, Our Lord pronounces the Sixth Word: "It is finished." (John 19:30) Then He proclaims victory:

The evening light begins to glimmer again upon Calvary, the three crosses, and the little group that waits for the end; and as it falls upon the Face of Christ, the look of agony is gone. He has cried alike to God and man to have pity, upon tortured Soul and parched Body, and each has answered. Now in that Face, bleached by the darkness of the soul, and the Eyes, sunken with sorrow, a new look begins, that rises, as those who stand by watch Him, until the whole Face is radiant once again. The breaths come fuller and fuller, the Body nailed by its extremities begins to lift itself higher and higher till strength is regained sufficient for Him not to speak only, but to utter a cry so loud and triumphant as to startle and amaze the officer who has watched many men die, but never as This Man dies. The cry peals out, like the shout of a king in the moment of victory; and, in an instant, failure and labour and bitterness are behind Him for ever. Consummatum est. . . . "It is finished!"{1}

Benson explains the effects of this moment of victory for us:

Friendship between God and man is now made possible again, in the Body of Christ. That old irreconcilable enmity between the sin of the creature and the Justice of the Creator, between the defilement of the spirit and the Holiness of the Father of Spirits, is done away. We can be "accepted in the Beloved."

First, then: salvation is open to the sinner. No sin henceforth is unforgivable.

Even more:

Not only is mere friendship made possible by the death of Christ, but degrees of friendship to which even the angels cannot aspire. It is not only that a soul, through the Precious Blood, can pass from death to life, but that she can pass up through stages and heights and strata of that life, up to the perfection of sanctity itself. . . .

II. Christ's work, then, is "finished" on the Cross -- finished, that is, not as closed and concluded, but, as it were, liberated from the agonizing process which has brought it into being -- finished, as bread is finished from the mills and the fire, that it may be eaten; as wine is finished after the stress and trampling of the winepress -- finished, as a man's body is finished in the womb of his mother and brought forth with travail. . . .

Yet here is this vast river of grace pouring from Calvary, the river that ought to be making glad the City of God. Here is this enormous reservoir of grace, bubbling up in every sacrament, soaking the ground beneath our feet, freshening the air we breathe. And we still in our hateful false humility talk as if Perfection were a dream, and Sanctity the privilege of those who see God in glory.

In Christ's Name, let us begin. For Christ has finished.

As we enter into the Passiontide of Lent, when the glorious symbols of one aspect of that fulfillment--the sanctification of the human soul--and even the Crucifixes in our churches may be veiled, we remember both the Agony of the Passion and prepare for the celebration of its Victory. And on the Monday of Holy Week, we'll conclude this series with the Last Word