Jesus Experiences Abandonment
[Lord Jesus] help me consider that I deserve to be forsaken infinitely by God, … [because] I have never disposed myself to profit from the merit of that abandonment. (OOCC, X, PP. 417 - 418; STA, 473)
As Jesus hung on the cross, waiting for the moment of his death, the sense of loneliness he felt became more acute. The desperation he felt about the fact that his apostles had not stood by him at his last hour and that his mission had failed, though painful was manageable silently. But the desperation he felt – about the fact that his heavenly Father, at whose bidding he had begun his redemptive enterprise, had given up on him – was something that Jesus could not bear in silence. Jesus experienced intense pain deep within his heart when the thought that his heavenly Father had abandoned him overwhelmed him. He cried out loudly in desperation and made a frantic appeal, asking the Father the reason for his abandonment. St. Vincent Pallotti, contemplating on this experience of Jesus’ abandonment by the Father, felt within himself that he deserved to be forsaken infinitely by the Father for his repeated unfaithfulness. He accused himself that he never profited spiritually from the merits of Jesus’ abandonment. He wished that he had learned from this desperate and painful experience of Jesus to accept courageously any similar experiences God sent in his life.
Do I understand the full implication of Jesus’ abandonment by his heavenly Father? What do I learn for my life from this experience of Jesus? Do I live my life in such a way that I deserve to be abandoned by God? Do I have the inner courage to cope with similar situations of abandonment?
And about three o’clock Jesus cried out in a loud voice, … “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” (Mt. 27: 46)