Crucified Orator new file

THE SEVENTH WORD OF THE C rUCIFIEd O rATOr “Father, into your hands I commend my spirit” (Lk 23:46). We Must Frequently Entrust Our Souls to Christ the Lord, Lest We Want to Fall Often Again and Again. We frequently notice that men – upon departing this world – entrust to their closest ones what they held dearest during their life. Thus did Turnius 1 , King of the rutuli, otherwise a very brave hero, defeated in a duel with Aeneas the Trojan, 2 “on his knees, humbly raising his hands, with a gaze of supplication pleaded with his victor: If any concern for a parent’s grief Can touch you (you too had such a father, in Anchises) I beg you to pity daunus’s old age. 3 On the other hand, our redeemer dying upon the Cross, did not speak to any man or angel, but to His Heavenly Father, en- trusting to Him His spirit: “Father, into your hands I commend my spirit.” Saint Athanasius 4 , meditating upon these words, stated: “Christ, saying these words from the cross: ‘Father, into your hands I commend my spirit,’ places all people before the Father and entrusts them to Him, so that through Him and with Him, they might be brought to life. For we are members, and there members are one body, which is the Church. Therefore, He entrusted all to God in Himself.” Cyril agrees with Athanasius 5 , saying: The eternal Son “entrusted His spirit into the hands of the Father so that, beginning with Him 1 Turnus is a legendary king of the rutuli, appearing in Virgil’s Aeneid. 2 A Trojan warrior, the hero of the Aeneid. 3 Translation from http://www.poetryintranslation.com/PITBr/Latin/Virgil AeneidxII.htm#_Toc6669721. 4 St. Athanasius the Great. 5 St. Cyril of Alexandria (ca. 380-444) was the patriarch of Alexandria and is a