It was now about noon and darkness came over the whole land until three in the afternoon because of an eclipse of the sun. Then the veil of the temple was torn down the middle. Jesus cried out in a loud voice, “Father, into your hands I commend my spirit”; and when he had said this he breathed his last. (LK 23:44-46)
The readings for a Mass for the Dead or for a Funeral Mass, point us to the profound reality of the suffering love of God that desires nothing more than to transform the unfortunate consequence of sin and disobedience into the gracious and eternal reward of happiness and peace. It is the greatest act of love and mercy the world will ever know. God’s unfathomable divine love revealed to restore life through the sacrificial self-offering and death of his Only Begotten Son on a cross. Eternal life given once more and made possible not through any merit of the suffering creature but only through the gratuitous gift of the suffering of Christ on the Cross. Christ remained vulnerable to the Father and vulnerable to humanity throughout his whole life. From the moment he understood the Father’s plan to the moment it was fulfilled and still today during every Eucharistic Celebration, Jesus’ vulnerability is displayed and manifested in his birth as a child born into extreme poverty and destined for rejection, confrontation and controversy; through his baptism which assumed an innocent, holy man to be a poor, repented sinner in need of salvation; through his temptation in the desert which allowed Satan to taunt and test him as he fasted and prayed; in his Passion where he became so vulnerable, that he allowed sinful humanity to mock, chastise and ridicule him unmercifully then defile, mistreat and destroy his body ever so mercilessly. But in obedience, trust and mercy, he loved us in the beginning, through it all and still today and evermore. Scripture tells us, “The souls of the just are in the hand of God, and no torment shall touch them. They seemed, in the view of the foolish, to be dead; and their passing away was thought an affliction and their going forth from us, utter destruction. But they are in peace.” Jesus remained totally abandoned, entrusted and committed to the Father, to his Divine Will and to his Divine Plan. Without worries, without reservation, without concern, without failing Jesus trustingly and lovingly placed everything in the Father’s hands, including his very self, his life, his spirit, his soul. Imagine being in the hands of God, protected, loved, cared for, resting, without worries and at peace for all eternity.