11 Comments
User's avatar
Rufino Ty's avatar

It is true. But how do you do that or what could impel you to do that?

Expand full comment
Kaleb Hammond's avatar

"With men this is impossible: but with God all things are possible." (Mt 19:26) Only through the grace of Christ, received in the sacramental life of the Church and in communion with the saints, can anyone be truly humble and charitable.

Expand full comment
Rufino Ty's avatar

Intellectually that makes sense.

How do you make sense of Jesus cry on the cross, “my God, my God why have you forsaken me?

Expand full comment
Kaleb Hammond's avatar

The traditional interpretation is that, according to ancient practice, He was referencing the whole psalm by quoting its first verse. This was also His sharing in our suffering, in the feeling of abandonment by God whenever we undergo hardship, even though Christ knew that God never truly leaves us.

Expand full comment
Rufino Ty's avatar

What is your personal understanding of those words? Not the traditional interpretation.

Did God really abandon him? Why did he has to say that? He knew right in the Garden of Gethsemane this was what he was undergo. Secondly, He told his apostle about it. He consented to it. Why say he God abandoned him? What does he mean by that? Should it nit had been timely for him to say those words in the Garden. It does sound late to do that from human perspective.

Expand full comment
Kaleb Hammond's avatar

My "personal understanding" is to obey the traditional understanding of the saints. Though fully human, He is also God, and so all of His words have infinite weight. It is not for us to try and correct His wording or timing but to understand them with the Church.

Expand full comment
Rufino Ty's avatar

And to say God abandoned him?

Expand full comment
Rufino Ty's avatar

Additionally, the statement that he was referencing the psalm is the way we see it. Does it really what he meant. Here he is dying on the cross, would humanly speaking be thinking of referencing his last words to the psalm? Sharing of our feeling of abandonment? God did not abandon humanity. Humanity transgressed the word of God. Why Abandonment? Isn’t that what humanity rightfully got by this trespass on God’s sovereignty? He did not share with our lot because he is sinless. Let us not forget he suffered from the hand of humans, who he is one of them.

Expand full comment
Kaleb Hammond's avatar

I did not say that God abandoned Him (which would be impossible anyways, since Christ is God), but that He felt the sense of abandonment we feel in our sinful state. Despite His pain, He certainly did have the full truth in mind. And remember what St. Paul said: "Christ never knew sin, and God made him into sin for us, so that in him we might be turned into the holiness of God." (2 Cor 5:21) Also the prophecy of Isaiah: "A leper, so we thought of him, a man God had smitten and brought low; and all the while it was for our sins he was wounded, it was guilt of ours crushed him down; on him the punishment fell that brought us peace, by his bruises we were healed." (Is 53:4-5) He never sinned but took on the weight of our sin for us so that we might be saved.

Expand full comment
Rufino Ty's avatar

Don’t get me wrong.

The questions are not meant to criticize but were asked to motivate the intellect to search for answers.

There is nothing we change what Jesus did, but it would be good to know what was in his mind and soul when he was on the cross, by examining his words. Hence the questions were to seek for answers not to criticize.

Expand full comment
Kaleb Hammond's avatar

I understand. Sometimes our tone can seem different in text than we intend. Thanks for the questions! God bless!

Expand full comment