Seven

This afternoon many Christians will contemplate Christ's last words from the cross.  With Jesus, we'll confront all of the pain, the loss, the suffering, the alienation that are part and parcel of the human condition.  With Jesus, we'll know what it means to feel alone and forsaken.  Jesus' lament from the cross is disturbing, unsettling.  If he can doubt God, what hope is there for us?  Providentially, it is through Jesus' questions that we are shown how to live lives of faith.  For through Christ, we are reminded that one of the paradoxes of faith is that to believe, we have to allow ourselves to doubt.  Without doubt, without questions, we cannot have an honest relationship with God.  Jesus knew this, and wants us to know this.

So, on this darkest of days of the liturgical calendar, and on the dark days each of us will surely experience, we are free to ask, to wonder, to question, doing so in the assurance that God will be listening, comforting, embracing us as we do so.

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