Tenebrae 2021

Meditation on the Third Word Who can grasp the grief of Mary watching her son suffer - the grief of Mary watching him die? Who can grasp the grief of the son who must watch his mother mourn? What gift can a man give his grieving mother? What can he offer when he is gone? How can he help her? Hold her? Comfort her? Honor her? "Woman, behold your son" Here is one I love, to love you, and for you to love." Jesus takes the disciple whom he loves, and the mother who loves him, and from this community of suffering, creates a community of faith and hope. "Woman, behold your son. Behold your mother." Extinguish Third Candle and Dim Lights Hymn: # 719 – At the Cross Her Station Keeping “And when the sixth hour had come, there was darkness over the whole land until the ninth hour. And at the ninth hour Jesus cried with a loud voice, ‘Eloi, eloi, lama sabachthani?’ which means, ‘My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?’” ( Mark 15:33-34 ) Meditation on the Fourth Word Of all the agony of that tortuous day: the lacerations from the scourging, the chafing of the crown of thorns around his head, the convulsions of his tormented, dehydrated body as it hung in the heat all the day - nothing reaches the depth of this anguished cry of desolation: "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" Jesus, who found his purpose and strength in the presence of God, who was sustained by the immediacy of his relationship with God, and who endured all by the tangible power of God always at work within him; whose relationship with the Father always was a center of vitality and peace, found himself totally alone on the cross abandoned by the Father. Plumbing the depths of the human condition, walking in the absence of God, in the place of sinners, in the place of those who reject God. "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" In these words is the central mystery of the crucifixion which cannot be fully comprehended, that there is no despair so deep, or evil so overwhelming, no place so far removed from the joy, light, and love of the heart of God, that God himself has not experienced, and where God cannot meet us and bring us home. Extinguish Fourth Candle and Dim Lights Hymn: # 330 – When I Survey the Wondrous Cross