Jesus Accomplishes His Father’s Will
[Lord Jesus] help me consider that I have never profited from the infinite love with which our Lord Jesus Christ … fulfilled all that was prophesied concerning his humble, poor, suffering, and despised life and death. (OOCC, X, p. 416; STA, 472)
As Jesus was human like us in every way except sin, it was natural that he did experience a sense of desperation like any one of us when he perceived that his apostles and his heavenly Father abandoned him. Though the experience of abandonment was intensely painful and temporarily created in Jesus a deep sense of desperation, it was not a permanent state of mind in Jesus. In the sixth words Jesus spoke from the cross, we do not see a desperate Jesus, but a resigned, grateful and peaceful Jesus. Jesus was able to make the transition from desperation to peacefulness very quickly. In saying, “It is finished,” Jesus showed his resignation to the will of the Father; he was grateful to the Father for helping him to drink the cup of his passion, suffering and death; and he experienced a sense of peacefulness for having accomplished the design of the Father for him. Contemplating on the sixth words of Jesus from the cross, St. Vincent Pallotti felt that he never profited from Jesus’ example of accomplishing his Father’s holy will, though it implied humble, poor, suffering or despised life and death. He realized that he needed to learn Jesus’ resignation, gratitude for the Father’s constant assistance and peacefulness for having accomplished God’s will.
Am I, like Jesus, able to make the transition from desperation to peaceful acceptance of God’s will quickly? Do I accept the cross which comes into my life with resignation, gratitude and peacefulness? What do I learn from Jesus’ complete acceptance of God’s will in his life?
When Jesus had taken the wine, he said, “It is finished.” (Jn. 19: 30)