T
Trishie
Guest
Jesus’ dying prayer
Father God, the sky is darkening with the culmination of my human destiny. I can no longer see Your Face! I humbly cry out to You from the depths of my being. I AM Your beloved Son who has accomplished all that You desired of me.
I AM only begotten Son of Your divine Essence. You created all things through me. Yet I hang defenceless upon searing metal stakes that bite into my flesh and bone each time that I force upwards to gasp the very air that You created through me.
My torment is scarcely bearable and my mind faints and jolts in horrific awareness with the weakness of my battered, abused body. My body, ruined in its youthful strength, is exposed in degraded despoil. Fevered with dehydration, my eyesight fades, my ears ring, my head throbs, and my tongue swells.
My muscles tremble uncontrollably, deeply bruised by the Roman scourgers who smashed metal and jagged bone into every part. My face is swollen and raw; my eyelid split, heavy with pain and blood. Sweat screams saltily in my torn nerves. My joints are dislocated with violent distension. My head can find no ease as the thorns gouge into my scalp with inescapable ache within my brain.
Yet nothing wounds deeper than the torture of love within my being. My heart thunders and rips with the anguish of love. Love is the shuddering gasp of my breath. Love is the dry, harsh voice of thirst that cries out my forgiveness. Love is the blood and life-fluids that drain from me. Love is my strength, my weakness, my hope, my faith and my generosity.
Love has been my life and now it is my death. Let love flow from me upon all my brothers and sisters of humankind, to cleanse them from evil and discord. Let love draw them to me, in communion on their cross of redemption.
My Father how I love them, these foolish blind ones who watch me die, and taunt with indifference, lukewarmness and unbelief throughout the centuries. They have not seen and heard although I have fought the powers of evil for them, with persistent prayer and penance, with teaching and example, with humility and powerful truth, and now with my death. I am, for them, a bleeding, suffering testimony of love.
I love them, Father. Forgive them. They cannot understand what they do and fail to do. For my love of them even in my extremity, forgive them. Save them from the pitiless powers of darkness that rule the earth and oppress their lives.
They are my kin. I emptied myself of all glory and lived, witnessed and die—as man—for them. Pity them, for sake of my pity for them. I hold them up to You. My whole being bears the emptiness, darkness, and guilt of humankind’s deepest struggle. I would strive to enlighten them as I have these past years, but now is only time to suffer, to expiate, and to plead for them.
Father God, the sky is darkening with the culmination of my human destiny. I can no longer see Your Face! I humbly cry out to You from the depths of my being. I AM Your beloved Son who has accomplished all that You desired of me.
I AM only begotten Son of Your divine Essence. You created all things through me. Yet I hang defenceless upon searing metal stakes that bite into my flesh and bone each time that I force upwards to gasp the very air that You created through me.
My torment is scarcely bearable and my mind faints and jolts in horrific awareness with the weakness of my battered, abused body. My body, ruined in its youthful strength, is exposed in degraded despoil. Fevered with dehydration, my eyesight fades, my ears ring, my head throbs, and my tongue swells.
My muscles tremble uncontrollably, deeply bruised by the Roman scourgers who smashed metal and jagged bone into every part. My face is swollen and raw; my eyelid split, heavy with pain and blood. Sweat screams saltily in my torn nerves. My joints are dislocated with violent distension. My head can find no ease as the thorns gouge into my scalp with inescapable ache within my brain.
Yet nothing wounds deeper than the torture of love within my being. My heart thunders and rips with the anguish of love. Love is the shuddering gasp of my breath. Love is the dry, harsh voice of thirst that cries out my forgiveness. Love is the blood and life-fluids that drain from me. Love is my strength, my weakness, my hope, my faith and my generosity.
Love has been my life and now it is my death. Let love flow from me upon all my brothers and sisters of humankind, to cleanse them from evil and discord. Let love draw them to me, in communion on their cross of redemption.
My Father how I love them, these foolish blind ones who watch me die, and taunt with indifference, lukewarmness and unbelief throughout the centuries. They have not seen and heard although I have fought the powers of evil for them, with persistent prayer and penance, with teaching and example, with humility and powerful truth, and now with my death. I am, for them, a bleeding, suffering testimony of love.
I love them, Father. Forgive them. They cannot understand what they do and fail to do. For my love of them even in my extremity, forgive them. Save them from the pitiless powers of darkness that rule the earth and oppress their lives.
They are my kin. I emptied myself of all glory and lived, witnessed and die—as man—for them. Pity them, for sake of my pity for them. I hold them up to You. My whole being bears the emptiness, darkness, and guilt of humankind’s deepest struggle. I would strive to enlighten them as I have these past years, but now is only time to suffer, to expiate, and to plead for them.