My God! My God! Why have you freed me? Eastertide special. God’s will for Mary.

“My God! My God! Why have you abandoned me?” Psalm 22; Matthew 27:46; Mark 15:34.

During the Sacred Triduum 2024 I kept hearing interpretations of this psalmistic cry of Jesus on the Cross to His Heavenly Father such that “abandoned” and “forsaken” meant that Jesus’ Heavenly Father hated Jesus. That’s blasphemy. God is love, not hate.

Checking out the Hebrew and Aramaic, the most foundational meaning of this word has to do with being freed, a meaning not contradicted, but again, foundational in sense to the provided Greek translation. Thus:

• “My God! My God! Why have you freed me?!”

Wait? What?!

Trying to fathom this for some seconds, it struck me very hard in heart and soul, all spiritually, all emotionally, sorry, that this conversation of Jesus on the Cross with our Heavenly Father was not another, but a continuation of the same conversation that Jesus had with our Heavenly Father in the Garden of Gethsemane three times, just some hours previously, in a sweat of blood: “If possible, let this chalice pass from me…” and “Not my will, but thine be done…”

And now, hours later, at The Hour, our Heavenly Father frees Jesus from the obligation of obedience. Jesus is free to choose to come down from the Cross or to remain. Up to this time, Jesus – I’m speaking of the human nature of Jesus in which He had to learn obedience by what He suffered (Hebrews 5:8) – up to this time, Jesus was simply being obedient, and He did learn obedience by what He suffered… but now, freed from the obligation, it was all on Him to redeem us, to save us.

In Psalm 22, of which this cry – My God! My God! … – is the first line, immediately, amidst descriptions of the hellish violence of Calvary, the crucified voice in that psalm speaks of His Mother, who bore Him in her womb, who nursed Him at her breasts, for whom He has such a tender love. She is His first concern, not His own sufferings. Then, on the Cross, on Calvary, Mary is, again, His first concern amidst all the hellish violence. It’s not just that the chief priests are mocking Him, telling Him to come down from the Cross to save Himself and save us, but they are mocking His Mother: Tell Him to come down from the Cross! All the powers of religion and state are telling Him to do this. Why don’t you tell Him. You’re His Mother. He’s going to hell and you are going to hell with Him!

Up to this moment, Jesus was obeying. Now, being freed up, Jesus can stop all this in a moment, coming down from the Cross, or He can stay. But it’s now totally His decision. He must make the decision which will, in effect, cause His Mother to suffer more (short term). The purpose of our Heavenly Father freeing Jesus to choose is to make the loving merits of the human nature of Jesus grow, and the same for Mary, making them more of a team than ever. That lasted for only moments, but it was “enough”, when Jesus would then breathe forth His Spirit.

The only derived sense in which Jesus’ human nature was abandoned was to be freed up for an increase of love, and that is not abandonment at all. Can we, please, read the Scriptures in faith, in the love of God, and perchance notice the great truth of the instigated increase of love before rushing to derived cynicism?

• “My God! My God! Why have you freed me?!”
• “For an increase of love for you, my Son, and your dearest dear Mother Mary.”

/// Now, I called this an Eastertide special, looking forward to Pentecost. For this increase of love surely brought about in Mary the same experience of sweating of blood subsequent to a heart attack also breaking the pericardium, from which one can temporarily survive. Jesus died of such a broken Heart within hours on the Cross, though it should have taken Him days to die. Mary survived until Pentecost, but in a terribly weak state, John taking care of her. She had the joy of meeting Jesus, risen. But during this entire Eastertide she was utterly weak, always at the point of death.

And then did die, also of a broken heart, not because she was subject to original sin, but because she was Immaculate, because she was so generous with her love, that special increase of love upon the freeing up of Jesus by our Heavenly Father.

God’s ways are not our ways. My must allow ourselves to be slammed to our knees before these tremendous Mysteries of our Salvation, before Jesus and Mary, before our Heavenly Father and the Holy Spirit. The invitation to the increase of love was provided to John. He said yes. And what about us, this Eastertide, awaiting the fiery Pentecost to come? Are we available for this increase of love?