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Great and Holy Friday
About the ninth hour Jesus cried with a loud voice, saying, “Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani?” that is to say, “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?” (Mt 27.46, cf. Mk 15.34)
Into thy hand I commit my Spirit, thou hast redeemed me, Yahweh, faithful God” (Ps 31.5, cf. Lk 23.46)
While agonizing in his last moments on the Cross, [Christ] experienced just what any one of us might experience, from a moment of despair and seeming solitude, to trust and joy that led him to praise Yahweh. The fullness and depth of his humanity, as revealed in his experience of the Cross, ought to serve as an example to us, leading us all to the same humility and perseverance. Just like the psalmist [King David], Jesus, the Messiah, did not die in solitude, abandoned by God, but rather he went to his death awash in a jumble of feelings, which were ultimately overshadowed by his trust that the God of his fathers had redeemed him: “From between the horns of the rams thou didst answer me!” (Ps 22.21, cf. Ps 31.5).
—Archpriest Eugen J. Pentiuc, “A Crucifying Silence: A Messianic Reading of Psalm 22,” in Holy Week: A Series of Meditations
