Tenebrae 2021

Extinguish Sixth Candle and Dim Lights Hymn: # 161 – O Sacred Head, Surrounded “Then Jesus, c rying with a loud voice, said, "Father, into your hands I commend my spirit!" And having said this he breathed his last.” ( Luke 23:46 ) Meditation on the Seventh Word It is the end, the very end - the end of the ordeal, the end of the suffering, and Jesus - alone on the cross tortured, exhausted, abandoned by his friends, forsaken by God - gasps for a last breath and gathers the strength for one final cry. Why would he choose to speak so close to the end? Why would he muster the last energy he had to cry out with a loud voice? Couldn't God have heard his thoughts? Unless God wasn't the only one intended to hear. Unless his voice was pitched loud so that we, too, might hear this final dedication of his soul. A dedication made despite the pain, despite the mocking, despite the agony, despite the sense of horrible aloneness he felt. A dedication made to God before the resurrection, before the victory of the kingdom, before any assurance other than that which faith could bring. Jesus entrusts his spirit - his life - and all that has given it meaning - to God in faith, even at the point of his own abandonment. He proclaims his faith in God which the darkness cannot overcome. "Father, into your hands, I commend my spirit". Extinguish Seventh Candle and Dim Lights Hymn: # 328 – Take up thy Cross The Great Earthquake