Abba, Father | A Meditation on Suffering

There’s a church about 8 minutes away from my apartment that has morning daily Mass, and on days I wake up too early and can’t fall back asleep, I like to go. The feast of St. Barnabas was one of those mornings, and as I prayed my rosary before Mass, I looked up at the crucifix. 

One of the first things I noticed when I first moved here was that the crucifix in this church was pre-death: it shows Jesus looking up in agony, before His Spirit was released and His side was pierced. I remember thinking how unique it was to see a crucifix like this, because most of them show the death of Our Lord, not the moments just before. But back in November, it was just a fleeting observation and nothing more.

But sitting there before Mass on June 11, I could almost hear Him utter some of His last words:

“My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” (Matthew 27:46, Mark 15:34)

In that moment, it struck me how raw Jesus allows His heart to be. 

He’s up on the cross, all alone, with criminals to His left and right, and just three friends at His feet. 

He looks over a crowd that jeers at Him, makes fun of His pain, laughs at His torment. 

And even though He knows the plan—even though He is fully operating within the will of His Father—He still looks up and cries,

“why have you forsaken me?”

Knowing the way doesn’t make walking it any easier.

Knowing the outcome of our suffering doesn’t make it any less painful.

Knowing God’s Will is better than anything we could ever dream, doesn’t make our hearts ache any less.

Jesus—the Son of God, the Savior of the world, the Lamb who was slain, the Alpha and the Omega—suffered more than anyone in history and redeemed death itself, and even in that wisdom, He still allowed Himself to grieve, 

to lament, 

to cry out to the Heavens.

And I think this is because He wanted to show us that we can cry out too.

We’re allowed to be sad and still suffer well.

We’re allowed to grieve loved ones and still believe in the glory of the Resurrection.

We’re allowed to lament, and wail, and sob through hard times and still have faith that God is good, He will provide, and we will see the redemption of our losses on earth in the joys of Heaven.

And to emphasize this even more, the Passion of Christ isn’t the only place you’ll see this in the Bible. The Son of David echoed a prayer of a previous king:

“My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? Why art thou so far from helping me, from the words of my groaning?” (Psalm 22:1)

Allow yourself to cry out to Him, not from ungratefulness, but of faith in His deliverance and hope in the Resurrection. 

If the Psalms are to inspire our prayer, and the New Testament is to inspire our life, then let this phrase be the hymn of our suffering.