While hanging on the cross, Our Lord Jesus uttered seven things.  These were addressed in a specific time and place, but their eternal weight echoes through every generation.  Here are the seven last words of Christ: 

“Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do.” Luke 23:34

“Truly, I say to you, today you will be with me in Paradise.” Luke 23:43

“Woman, behold, your son!”  Then he said to the disciple, “Behold, your mother!” John 19:26-27

“My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?” Mark 15:34

“I thirst.” John 19:28

“It is finished.” John 19:30 

“Father, into thy hands I commit my spirit!” Luke 23:46

One of the most prolific commentators on the seven last words of Jesus was Venerable Fulton Sheen. The St. Paul Center’s excellent series on this very subject notes that Sheen preached for 58 straight years on this subject. Sheen covered a lot of ground, though not all of his talks made it into print. In book form, The Cries of Jesus from the Cross gathers available publications into an anthology. Book after book, sermon after sermon, why preach on it for 58 years? Sheen answers: “Calvary belongs to all times and to all places” (Calvary and the Mass, pg. 9). 

Below I will survey one of Fulton Sheen’s small, out-of-print books on the seven last words: Calvary and the Mass.  

The end of Sheen’s prologue offers an image for our imaginations: 

“Picture then the High Priest Christ leaving the sacristy of heaven for the altar of Calvary.  He has already put on the vestment of our human nature, the maniple of our suffering, the stole of priesthood, the chasuble of the Cross.  Calvary is his cathedral; the rock of Calvary is the altar stone; the sun turning to red is the sanctuary lamp; Mary and John are the living side altars; the Host is His Body; the wine is His Blood. He is upright as Priest, yet He is prostrate as Victim. His Mass is about to begin.” pg. 14

The image is a powerful one: the point of Jesus becoming man was redemption. While His whole life was part of that redemptive story, the definitive act of redemption is Calvary. And that is the eternal moment that we enter into at every Mass.  

Father, Forgive Them

The Mass begins with the penitential rite, where the assembly asks forgiveness of God. Sheen applies the first of the seven words to this rite: “Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do.” Jesus isn’t saying that men and women are too dumb not to sin. Perhaps we do not always understand why we sin—not even the brilliant St. Paul did (see Romans 7:15). Realize that the horrible, painful, torturous Cross of Christ was all of our sins. Mine and every single person who lives, ever lived, and will live. Do we know that we fashioned the cross? Do we know that the pain of the scourging, the malicious crown of thorns was of our doing? No, Jesus said. “The world will give you sin explained away, but only on Calvary do you experience the divine contradiction of sin forgiven” (pg. 22). It is for very good reason that the Mass begins with an ask for forgiveness.

Today You Will Be with Me in Paradise

An important piece of context for the biblical scene is the gruesome practice of crucifixion. The victims of this manner of execution do not die due to loss of blood; they slowly die of asphyxiation—not being able to breathe. Every word spoken by Jesus and the two thieves took a great amount of effort and pain. One thief demands Jesus get them all out of the situation; St. Dismas, the good thief, rebukes him. His reason came from penitence and faith:

“He did not want to be excused; he did not want to have his sin explained away; he did not want to be left off; he did not ask to be taken down. He wanted only to be forgiven.” pg. 37

In a similar manner, Sheen describes the offertory as a focused point where we bring ourselves to the sacrifice of the Mass. The “small hosts” we bring—our lives, joys, struggles, pain, etc.–are unified with the “great Host” of Our Lord:  

“Round about the hill of Calvary are our small crosses on which we, the small hosts, are to be offered. When our Lord goes to His Cross we go to our little crosses, and offer ourselves in union with Him, as a clean oblation to the heavenly Father.” pg. 34

When we offer ourselves during the Mass in penitence and self-gift, we say along with St. Dismas, “remember me.”  

Behold Your Mother

Fulton Sheen takes this exchange among Jesus, St. John, and the Blessed Mother and applies it to the Sanctus (Holy, Holy, Holy). She was a gift from Jesus to us. Our Lord addressed His mother as ‘woman’ at Cana and Calvary in order to point to her universal mission (pg. 45). Our Lady became the mother of all the living in the order of grace when Jesus gave her to the care of St. John.  

“And why did our Lord give her to us as Mother? Because He knew we could never be holy without her. He came to us through her purity, and only through her purity can we go back to her. There is no Sanctus apart from Mary” (pg. 51-52). It’s not that Sheen is confusing Jesus and Mary; he is not supplanting Our Lord with His own Mother. Sheen is merely showing us that we are to follow the model of Jesus in every way: including being part of His family, coming from His Mother. She was with the apostles at Pentecost, mothering the infant Church—who better than Mary to be in that role? Nor does her mothering end there:   

“No woman can ever forget the child of her womb; then certainly Mary can never forget us…every time she sees another innocent child at the First Communion rail, or another penitent sinner making his way to the Cross, or another broken heart pleading that the water of a wasted life be changed into the wine of God’s love, that she hears once again that word: ‘Woman, behold thy son.’” pg. 55 

My God, My God

Out of the seven last words from Our Lord, Sheen notes that the final four are addressed to God, not man. He envisions this word corresponding to the consecration at Mass.  

“But why the cry of darkness?  Why the cry of abandonment…It was the cry of atonement for sin” (pg. 60). Jesus could have suffered silently, or availed Himself of a divine consolation. In a gesture of a complete outpouring of love, even though He had no sin, “He willed to feel the effect of sin, an awful sense of isolation and loneliness crept over Him—the loneliness of being without God” (pg. 61). On the cross, Jesus was with the lonely, the broken-hearted, the sinner, the lukewarm, the faithful, and the rebel. Some spiritual writers talk of Jesus’ condescension, a word that usually has a negative connotation. Here, however, it is an act of love of which nothing greater can be thought.

Jesus’ sacrifice was not one-way, either. Jesus asks and expects us to offer ourselves with His Body at the Mass. This is the fulfillment of what St. Paul mysteriously wrote to the Colossians: “I am now rejoicing in my sufferings for your sake, and in my flesh I am completing what is lacking in Christ’s afflictions for the sake of his body, that is, the church” (1:24). To this, Sheen connects the dots for us: 

“On the cross our Blessed Lord was looking forward to you, hoping that one day you would be giving yourself to Him at the moment of consecration.” (pg. 66) 

I Thirst

“Our Blessed Lord reaches the communion of His Mass when out from the depths of the Sacred heart there wells the cry: ‘I thirst’… He was thirsty for the souls and hearts of men. The cry was a cry for communion—the last in a long series of shepherding calls in the quest of God for men” (pg. 73).

Taking all of salvation history into account, we can see the shepherding calls of God’s thirst for our hearts. Adam and Eve broke the first covenant, but God continued to seal Himself in covenants to Noah, Abraham, Moses, and David.  God also sent judges and prophets, constantly calling His Chosen People back to Himself—to communion. “The basis of this plea for communion is Love, for Love by its very nature tends to unity” (pg. 75-76).  

The love of God for humanity is a profound mystery, and Sheen calls again for all the faithful to offer themselves as sacrifices alongside Jesus. The love we offer God pales in comparison to perfect, divine love; yet in response to Jesus’ thirst, let us not give Him vinegar and gall (pg. 83).

It is Finished

“What is finished?  The Redemption of man is finished. Love had completed its mission, for Love had done all that it could” (pg. 89). Our Lord perfectly completed His work, but our work is far from done. This may seem like an obvious point, but how exactly does this fit into the Mass?  

“The Mass makes this possible, for at the renewal of Calvary on our altars we are not on-lookers but sharers in Redemption, and there it is that we ‘finish’ our work… all that has been said and done and acted during Holy Mass is to be taken away with us, lived, practiced, and woven into all the circumstances and conditions of our daily lives” (pg. 93-94).  

The redemption of our souls was meant to touch everything. Everything. We are to be other Christs to our immediate world. Yes, the world on a broad scale, but more importantly, our world: our family, parishes, friendships, schools, places of work, cities, and neighborhoods.  

A lasting mark of a disciple is his/her perseverance. Jesus stayed on the cross until the end; the priest stays on the altar until the end of Mass. If we stay faithful to the end, completing our Ite, missa est, “the angel choirs and the white-robed army f the Church Triumphant will answer back: ‘Deo gratias’” (pg. 96).

Father, Into Thy Hands I Commend My Spirit

Sheen applies this final word of Christ to the Last Gospel—which was a feature of the Mass before the current novus ordo.  St. John’s Prologue was read as a reminder to the assembled faithful: as the Word was made flesh two thousand years ago, the Divine Word is made flesh in the Eucharist and in us.  Go, you are sent!  The Mass may end, but our mission begins.

Yet at the same time, the beginning is our end.  Sometimes we live as if our last day is an ‘if’ instead of a ‘when.’  

“When our earthly pilgrimage is over, and we go back to the beginning, God will look at both of our hands… blessed indeed are they who carry in their Cross-marked hands the bread and wine of consecrated lives signed with the sign and sealed with the seal of redemptive Love.” (pg. 104)

By the grace of God, at the end of our lives it will be our turn to say, “Father, into Your hands I commend my spirit.”  

Venerable Fulton Sheen’s reflections the seven last words of Jesus are rich, thoughtful, and come from a mind and heart that was configured to Christ Himself.  Let us enter into the sacrifice of Calvary, of the Mass with a renewed heart.