And when the sixth hour was come, there was darkness over the whole earth until the ninth hour. And about the ninth hour Jesus cried out with a loud voice, saying: "Eloi, Eloi, lamma sabacthani?" Which is, being interpreted: "My God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken Me?" And some of them that stood there and heard, said: "Behold, this man calleth for Elias." - Matthew 27:45-47; Mark 15:33-35; Luke 23:44
1. "From the sixth to the ninth hour." The darkness is clearly miraculous; the disciples understood it as such. But it was such a miracle as the enemy could easily assert to be not proven. Such is the way of God. Miracles are more usually for those who have the wish to believe; for those who have the wish to disbelieve it is always possible to find a way out, even if it be the crude answer that we do not understand all the facts. There is often darkness at midday; that on this occasion it should have fitted in with Our Lord's hanging on the cross is a coincidence. But we understand; Nature held her veil before her face in very shame at what was being done. She would not see; she would have others not see. Our Lord had said that if the children who praised Him were silenced, the very stones would cry out; now all Nature cries out at the crime that is committed. And all the time we must not forget the three long, long hours of Our Lord's last agony.
2. "My God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken Me?" The words open the Twenty-first Psalm. But it would seem to be a mistake to suppose that they are merely that and no more. Rather they are an apt quotation used to express Our Lord's real state of soul; they are another fulfillment of prophecy. Our Lord is drinking the cup to the dregs; He is deliberately going through the "hour and the power of darkness," and He wills that He should be deprived of this last consolation. From other passages it is clear that Our Lord's mind, like Our Lady's, is full of the Old Testament and its texts, which come familiarly to the mind in time of prayer, even as ejaculations come to the mind of one who has made himself familiar with them. Hence now, in the moment of His great desolation, the desolation of the Psalmist, prophetic of His own, provides Him with this form of prayer. If Our Lord was tempted by the Devil after His long fast in the desert, if then the Devil only "left Him for a time," we need not be surprised if now temptation of this strange kind oppresses Him.
3. The Psalm which He cites is one of the great prophetic psalms, and therefore deserves to be considered here. Here are some of its passages:
"But I a worm and no man:
The reproach of men, and the outcast of the people.
All they that saw Me laughed Me to scorn;
Curled their lips and wagged their head.
He hopes in the Lord, let Him deliver Him;
Let Him save Him, seeing He delighteth in Him!"
And again:
"I am poured out like water;
And all My bones are numbered.
My heart is become like wax within My breast.
My tongue is dried up as a potsherd,
Cleaving to My mouth:
And Thou hast reduced Me to the dust of death.
For dogs have encompassed Me:
A council of the malignant hath besieged Me.
They have dug My hands and My feet.
They have numbered all my bones.
They have looked and gloated with their eyes upon Me.
They parted My garments among them:
And upon My vesture they cast lots."
Summary
1. The darkness from the sixth to the ninth hour.
2. "My God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken Me?"
3. Psalm Twenty-one.
- from The Crown of Sorrow, by Archbishop Alban Goodier