What is the Traditional understanding of "I thirst"

[YehoiakhinEx232]

I’m still engaging in my online informal debate with Protestants on Mary as the Mother of all believers. One of the Protestants tried to challenge me by pointing out that Jesus asked for something to drink while on the Cross. (It was to counter my main argument of: Why would Jesus say “Behold thy Mother” right in the middle of His Sacrifice on the Cross if it was not extremely important?) I want to know, what is the Traditional understanding and significance of Jesus saying “I thirst” on the Cross?

 

[Xanthippe_Voorhees]

debate with Protestants on Mary as the Mother of all believers. One of the Protestants tried to challenge me by pointing out that Jesus asked for something to drink while on the Cross. (It was to counter my main argument of: Why would Jesus say “Behold thy Mother” right in the middle of His Sacrifice on the Cross if it was not extremely important?) I want to know, what is the Traditional understanding and significance of Jesus saying “I thirst” on the Cross?

My understanding it was both a physical pain and a psychological thirsting for reunion with God. Remember, Jesus indicated that his blood would satisfy all thrist.

 

[Mintaka]

Your Protestant friend is missing a lot, if he thinks “I thirst” was just something random that Jesus happened to say. Protestant as well as Catholic Biblical commentaries have always regarded “I thirst” as a particularly meaningful statement.

First off, it was important for Jesus to be offered “wine and gall” as part of fulfilling Biblical prophecy about the Messiah. (Ps. 68:22/69:21 – “They gave me gall… and ijn my thirst, they gave me vinegar to drink.”) The sponge with wine/vinegar and gall also included “hyssop” (John 19:29), which goes to the way the Passover blood of the lamb was placed upon the door of the house (and Jesus is the Door as well as the Lamb!); and was on a “reed,” which goes to “The bruised reed he shall not break.” (Is. 42:3/Mt. 12:20).

Second, it tied into what He said - promised - at the Last Supper: “I will not drink wine again until I drink it new in the Kingdom of God.” When He said, “I thirst,” He was anticipating eagerly His inauguration of the Kingdom of God by dying and rising, when He would drink “new wine.”

(And very possibly it ties into the “fourth cup of Passover” theory.)

Finally, “I thirst” is often seen as Jesus’ longing to have the Cross done with, so that He could have people redeemed. He hungers and thirsts for justice; He hungers and thirsts to save our souls and make us happy with Him forever.

Mother Teresa based her whole ministry to the poor on her meditations on Jesus saying, “I thirst.” It’s the foundation of her religious order’s spirituality.

So yeah, that’s a Big Deal quote from Jesus. I’ve hardly dug into it at all.

 

[po18guy]

Things are being made up solely to oppose Catholic teaching - to be expected, actually. I know of three Psalm references which our Lord made on the cross. Psalm 22:2 “My God, my God, why have you abandoned me?”; Psalm 30:6 “Into thy hands I commend my spirit” and Psalm 69:22 “Instead they gave me poison for my food; and for my thirst they gave me vinegar.” These cement the relationship between Jesus and David, whose throne our Lord inherits, per the Archangel Gabriel at the Annunciation to Mary.

As to Mary being the Mother of Christians (Apoc 12:17 “Then the dragon was angry with the woman,[c] and went off to make war on the rest of her offspring, on those who keep the commandments of God and bear testimony to Jesus.”), your friend clearly ignores or disregards Apocalypse 12:5 “she brought forth a male child, one who is to rule all the nations with a rod of iron” which is a clear reference to Psalm 2:8-9 “Ask of me, and I will make the nations your heritage, and the ends of the earth your possession. You shall break them with a rod of iron, and dash them in pieces like a potter’s vessel.”

Who else can this be?

 

[Todd_Easton]

The Catechism of the Catholic Church describes this as both a literal thirst to satisfy the physical needs of his human nature (544) and a spiritual thirst to embrace the Father’s plan of redeeming love, “to drink the cup the Father has given” him (607), and and a spiritual thirst that we return His divine love for us. (2560, 2561)

 

[Mintaka]

Yup. I forgot to mention that the literal human dimension is very important, too. Christ was true man as well as true God, so He truly did feel pain, feel hunger, and feel thirst. He wasn’t some kind of ghost or hologram or robot up on the Cross.

He was thirsty, and He said so.

And since we also experience human needs and human suffering, we should take heart from Jesus bearing it on the Cross. He understands exactly what it’s like.

 

[NeedImprovement]

The Church has no shortage of mystical writings on the “Sitio” (“I thirst”). The ensuing is an excerpt from The Passion and the Death of Jesus Christ by St. Alphonsus Liguori :

Sitio
“I thirst.”
St. John wites, Jesus then, knowing that all things were accomplished, that the Scripture might be fulfilled, said: I thirst. Scripture here refers to the words of David, They gave Me gall to eat, and in my thirst they gave me vinegar to drink

Severe was this bodily thirst., which Jesus Christ endured on the Cross through his loss of blood, first in the garden, and afterwards in the hall of judgement, at his scourging and crowning with thorns; and lastly, upon the Cross, where four streams of blood gushed forth from the wounds of his pierced hands and feet as from four fountains.
But far more terrible was his spiritual thirst, that is, his ardent desire to save all mankind, and to suffer still more for us, as Blosius says, in order to show us his love. On this St. Laurence Justinian writes:“This thirst came from the fount of love.”

Mother Catherine Aurelia foundress of the Sisters Adorers of The Precious Blood - established more than 150 years ago, and with several monasteries throughout Canada, wrote THE SITIO which she left as a legacy to her spiritual daughters.

It’s deep : In THE SITIO , Mother Catherine Aurelia says that above all, Jesus’ thirst was a thirst for souls ; a thirst to love souls, and a thirst to be loved by souls.

The pdf of The Sitio (8-page booklet) can be read online by clicking HERE .