The following meditations on the Seven Last Words of Christ were delivered at the Cathedral of Saint Matthew the Apostle in Washington D.C. on Good Friday, 2025. Each meditation was followed by a musical interlude sung by the choir.
Preaching on the Seven Last Words is not part of the Good Friday liturgy. It has instead been traditionally part of the Three Hours Devotion on Good Friday, a practice begun in Lima by the Peruvian Jesuit Alonso Mesia (1665–1732), a man deeply respected for his charity, humility, and learning. It was greeted with such joy that it spread to other parts of the world and has been adapted in various forms over the centuries.
The Passion of Jesus Christ is a drama with many episodes. Each of them offers us a window into the mystery we celebrate on this day, this Friday we call “good.”
Many of the episodes, truth to tell, are terrible. The machinations of the authorities, the betrayal by Judas, Peter’s denial, the disciples who ran away, the cruelty of the crowd, the soldiers who mocked and beat Jesus and put him to a shameful death. For every bright spot, like the women who persisted when everyone else ran away, there are a dozen teeth-grinding disappointments.
You might have thought the followers of Jesus would want to erase this story. Yet the early Church preserved it all and did not shrink from the recollection. Rather, they found in the Passion the essential narrative of Jesus, the one who, as John the Evangelist tells us, “always loved his own in the world, and loved them to the end.”
To become present to this mystery, and enter into an internal dialogue with it, our task is a limited one. We will focus our attention on the Seven Last Words of Christ spoken from the cross. These words put us in touch with the person of Jesus and call forth a personal response. Let us listen to them, therefore, with both mind and heart.
1.
The first of these words comes from the Gospel according to St. Luke: Luke the physician, Luke the artist. Luke’s gospel is known as the gospel of joy. There is more singing in Luke’s gospel than in all the rest of the New Testament put together. And why not? His is also the gospel of mercy. He is the one who tells us the story of the prodigal son who returns to his father ready with a rehearsed speech of self-abasement, but doesn’t get to give it, because his father runs to meet him, “falls on his neck,” and welcomes him first.
It should not surprise us therefore that Luke brings us a word of forgiveness from Jesus when he is nailed to the cross: “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.”
Yet it does surprise us. Crucifixion was a slow, excruciatingly painful means of capital punishment. These soldiers for whom Jesus asks the Father’s forgiveness are, literally, torturing him to death. Who among us could rise above such pain and still see the humanity of our executioners—and, yes, pray for them?
We are not so merciful. We live in a society steeped in anger. People find it hard to forgive someone who cuts ahead of them on the highway. Much less do they find it easy to forgive offenses that deeply injure them, betrayals that break the heart.
Forgiveness is hard. It is a challenging way. Yet it is the only life-giving way, because it is God’s way. Jesus showed us this.
Let us pray, therefore, that God will grant us the grace to grow in our capacity to forgive as Jesus did. Let us ask the crucified and risen Lord for this grace as we stand at the foot of his cross: “Lord, help us to forgive as you forgave.”
2.
In all the gospel accounts, Jesus is crucified not alone, but with two other convicts, one on his right and one on his left. In Matthew and Mark, both taunt him. But in Luke, one reviles him for his powerlessness while the other reveres him as the Messiah and expresses faith in him: “Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom.”
In Matthew and Mark these two men are called “insurrectionists.” Jesus is classed with political criminals because his crime, like theirs, was to challenge Roman authority. In Luke, they are identified simply as “criminals”—we don’t know their crimes, as this was a broad category. Folk tradition, however, abhors a vacuum, and has filled in the blank and called them thieves.
Luke recounts a witness of faith by “the good thief” but does not give us his name. Tradition gives him the name Dismas, which means “sunset,” as his faith was confessed at the very end of his life. Nevertheless, this crucified criminal holds a place in the calendar of saints of the Orthodox Church and the Roman Catholic Church precisely because of Jesus’ words to him, which we reflect upon today: “Amen, I say to you: Today you will be with me in paradise.”
What captures my imagination here is not so much “paradise” which, after all, could be construed as a reward or a gift, but rather the words “with me.” Today you will be with me in paradise. Thief or insurrectionist, Jesus is prepared to keep company with him—for all eternity.
It is something we have seen elsewhere in the gospels. Again and again, Jesus keeps company with sinners, with the lowly and despised who have come to believe. He ate with tax collectors and others whom respectable people would have avoided. His followers included the rabble. This scandalized the religious leaders of his day who placed great emphasis on purity. He confronted their hardness of heart directly in Matthew 21:31, saying “prostitutes and tax collectors are entering into the kingdom before you!”
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And behold, it happens again at the cross. An insurrectionist or a thief was more open to the revelation in Christ than were the chief priests, Herod, or Pilate—and Christ was open to him. It happens again when the Roman centurion, after the death of Jesus, acclaims him as the Son of God.
There will always be unlikely witnesses who turn to Jesus and place their hope in him. They are with him, and he is with them. They remain in his company.
Let us pray therefore that the urgency of this word from the cross does not pass us by. It is never too late to turn to Christ in faith. May it also never be too late for us to notice the divine spark in some unlikely witnesses who respond to God’s call in our presence. Let us say, with them, “Yes, amen.”
3.
This third word is often interpreted as a gesture of tenderness addressed to the mother of Jesus and to his disciple John. “Mother, behold your son. Son, behold your mother.” The special bond that children experience with their mothers, Jesus surely had experienced with his mother Mary. He knew she would grieve his passing and miss him dearly. So would John, the beloved disciple. From the cross, Jesus entrusts these two people to each other in a relationship of care.
Yet there is another message for us in this word. Frequently in John’s gospel there is more than one layer of meaning to a word or phrase or interaction, and so it is here. Scripture scholar Raymond Brown in his masterful commentary on John’s gospel tells us that in addition to being real people, John and Mary are also symbolic figures. John, the beloved disciple, represents the individual believer, while Mary represents the Church.
You have heard the expression “mother Church.” We’ll hear it in the Exsultet, sung at the Easter Vigil: “Rejoice, O mother Church in shining splendor,” and it is found in many teachings and texts. Yet, sadly, for many today, the Church is not so much a mother as an institution and its structures. Some call the official representatives of the hierarchy “the Church,” as if the Church is “them,” not “us.” One hears people say: “I love Jesus; my problem is with the Church.” And the divide deepens.
Jesus, however, sees no such divide. By placing the Church and the individual believer in a relationship of mutual love, he shows us that our direction is and must be toward communion: the Church as family. Communion is a structured relationship, to be sure, but one devoted to a loving commitment, taking care of one another with mutual respect and sincerity in all humility.
In the Saturday night Easter vigil, you will see the baptisms of new disciples—“beloved disciples,” if you will. And you, all of you together, will be “mother Church” for them. How will you walk with these precious individuals? How will you receive them into your home?
4.
How wrenching it is to hear this next word, Jesus’ cry of utter dereliction: “My God, my God, why have you abandoned me?” Out of love for humanity, he endured incredible suffering—not only the experience of physical pain, but also the pain of feeling abandoned by God. Fully human, as well as fully divine, Jesus knew the depths of human suffering in his own flesh and spirit.
Because he was divine, through him our human sufferings have been taken up into the heart of God. Jesus has the power to save us; he reveals God’s infinite compassion, God’s “suffering with” us. That is why, through the ages, believers who have suffered greatly, whether in mind, body, or spirit, have looked to Jesus on the cross. He knows our pain as we struggle with debilitating illness, and as we approach death itself. The savior on the cross has identified himself with all of suffering humanity.
Jon Sobrino, a liberation theologian from El Salvador, has taken this identification a step further in his writings about “the crucified peoples.” The suffering Christ stands in solidarity with all the innocent victims of violence and war, he argues.
Indeed, they are all around us: in the Middle East, in Ukraine, in Sudan, in El Salvador. So many innocent victims cry out: “My God, my God, why have you abandoned me?” If we say we love Jesus but we have no concern for the crucified peoples, we have not understood the meaning of his cross.
But if we do understand the cross, it carries a message of liberation.
5.
Knowing that his death was near, and with it, his sacrifice would be complete, Jesus says in John’s gospel, “I thirst.”
Why thirst? This must be understood in the context of earlier sayings concerning “drinking the cup” of suffering that was allotted to him as part of the Father’s plan of redemption. In the garden of Gethsemane, Jesus sweats blood and prays: “Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass me by.” When the soldiers come to seize him, Peter raises his sword and cuts off the high priest’s ear. But Jesus stops him, saying, “Shall I not drink the cup that the Father has given me?”
“I thirst.” This is the moment when Jesus shows his willingness to drink the cup of suffering to its dregs. He is fulfilling the scriptures that say the Messiah must suffer. As the prophet Isaiah foretold, “through his suffering my servant will justify many and their guilt he will bear.” His taking of the wine is therefore a sign. It is his “Yes” to the Father’s will.
Are we called to imitate him, each in our own way? The scriptures’ answer to this is yes, we too are asked to drink the cup that Jesus drank if we want to share in his glory—which, of course, we do! In fact, every Sunday we ritualize this by sharing the common cup of Christ’s blood, the wine of Eucharist.
I know that it’s the option of the communicant to partake of the cup or not, as they choose. Yet, each time we pass by the cup of Christ’s blood, even if we do not take it in our hands and drink, we can and must recommit ourselves to “drink the cup” that Jesus drank.
What does this mean? Most of us are not called to martyrdom; few people are. But every one of us is called to practice self-giving love: that is, a love that is willing to suffer for the sake of others.
Our “Amen” to the Body and Blood of Christ in the Eucharist is therefore not just the reception of a gift. It is a sacred promise to live as he lived, to act out of love for others even when it’s costly, to unite our sufferings with his and place our trust in God.
Can we drink this cup?
6.
“It is finished.” These are the words of Jesus in the Gospel of John before he bows his head and breathes his last. What is finished? His self-giving, his sacrifice for our salvation.
We cannot ask for any higher proof of the love God has for the world than that he should give up his only Son to death for our sake. That proof stands, from that moment on Golgotha to all eternity. We celebrate it in every Eucharist. It becomes real to us in the sacred meal: the covenant sealed in his blood is the continual source of our life and the bond of our communion.
The Passion of the earthly Jesus is finished. Though he will later appear in his risen body with the wounds of the Passion still evident, he dies no more. Because Jesus is the Son of God, this is the ultimate sacrifice. He died once for all sinners, and his resurrection breaks the power of death forever.
The first generations of believers following the death of Jesus produced no artistic representations of the cross. It was too horrible. The pain was too fresh, the memory too real.
When the cross does appear in representations, a transformation takes place, because in the collective memory of Christians the cross no longer exists in isolation. It is imbued with the rest of the narrative: the story of the resurrection, the empty tomb, the one who lives. The cross becomes a symbol of both suffering and triumph, a memory of blood poured out, but also a font of healing and a sign to the nations, with a universal message. “When I am lifted up,” Jesus says, “I will draw all people to myself.”
The story of the Passion can never be whitewashed of its pain. But it is more than a drama of suffering that ends in death. It is a proclamation of victory over evil—a victory that can never be overturned.
7.
“Father, into your hands I commend my spirit.”
The last of the Seven Words from the cross is taken, again, from the gospel of Luke. It opens a window into the intimate space in which Jesus prays to his Father. Instead of the cry of dereliction on which we reflected earlier, this is an expression of trust and letting go.
Can both be true? I think so. We see it in people who are dying. They pass from anguish and despair to acceptance. Yet it would be wrong, I think, to take this word to mean that Jesus is simply beaten down and finally just “gives up.” No, it is the ultimate expression of his own faith and freedom.
I am reminded of the Christian tradition of preparing for death, a long tradition of a clear-eyed reckoning with our own mortality. Sudden death was considered a great calamity because one needed to prepare. The Church even systematized a series of exhortations on this subject in a fifteenth century handbook called the Ars Moriendi, the Art of Dying.
It was written in the aftermath of the epidemic known in Europe as the Black Death, when so many people were dying panic-stricken, shaken in faith, with no counsel and no support, that it emerged as a pastoral necessity to think about how we respond, when given the chance to respond, to impending death. This booklet was written to help Christians prepare for “a good death”—to resist temptations to despair, to abide in faith and prayer, to experience forgiveness and reconciliation, and to place their hope in God. These lessons are all taken from the cross. It gave rise in turn to hundreds of pastoral guides in the ensuing centuries.
The indignities of dying are many. But we remain human, and in our humanity we remain linked to the God who loves us. We need never fear death, because Jesus has shown us how to be faithful, and he walks with us. The words Jesus spoke from the cross, “Father, into your hands I commend my spirit,” bear witness to his own trusting surrender.
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