by Thomas Sitio of Jesus (Gene Boehmann)

Meditation on the Fourth Word

"Darkness covered the whole earth."

My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?
"Eloi, Eloi, lama Sabacthani"
"Deus meus, ut guid dere liguiste me?"

"O my God, I cry out by day and you answer not, by night and you heard me not. I am like vermin, not a man, the scorn of men, despised by the people.
"O Lord, be not far from me, Lord, hasten to help me. Rescue me, save my wretched life." Ps. 22

If ‘sitio’ penetrates the mystery of physical pain then "Eloi" penetrates the mystery of the emotional, mental, and psychic agony of Our Lord.

The one mirrors the other in intensity. The whole human nature of Christ suffered to the ultimate.

"When this (Dark Night) oppresses a soul, it feels very vividly the shadow of Death, the sighs of death, and the sorrow of hell, all of which reflect the feeling of God’s absence, of being chastised and rejected by Him, as well as the object of His anger." St. John of the Cross: The Dark Night Bk 2 Ch 6

Lord, from the radiant splendor of your light, kindle my lamp, and let it shine into my darkness. By its illumination, lead us along your paths to the unending light in which you dwell.

"Because the soul is purified in the forge like gold in the crucible." Wisdom 3:6

"Christ endured . . . the entire evil of the turning away from God which his contained in sin. Together with this horrible weight, Christ, through the divine depth of his filial union with the Father, perceives in a humanly inexpressible way the suffering which is the separation, the rejection by the Father, the estrangement from God. But precisely through this suffering he accomplishes the Redemption."   Pope John Paul II the Great: Salvifici Doloris

"Perhaps I would think to bury myself in darkness; night should surround me, more approachable than day; but no, darkness is no hiding place from you, with you the night shines clear as day itself; light and dark are one." Psalm 138:11-12

Continued in subsequent Oblate Sharings