" As we reflect upon the work of Christ as the suffering servant, we who now benefit look back from the other side of the resurrection, in a time of grace, look back in hope. We grieve in remembrance, but not without hope. Let us then in hopeful gratitude enter with him into the shadow of death. We recall the words of the psalm which became the cry of despair from the Cross "My God, my God why have you forsaken me"; and we listen then for the words of assurance and promise which follow." -- Liturgy for Good Friday

"The Messiah must suffer. He must assume into himself all human suffering to transform it and make sense out of it for an everlasting purpose. We live in the light of Resurrection. Our reading of the Scriptures is always on the backdrop of knowing that Jesus will overcome. Could it be that this knowledge makes us passive participants in the unfolding of an ancient drama? In our TV-violent age, are we immune to the real pain?

Perhaps we need to remember that real people suffered these events, not as actors on a stage, but as sons and mothers and relatives and friends. Jesus Christ alone suffered, died and redeemed us. He alone! He was truly alone yet not alone. Each person is ultimately alone in death..." --Lenten Meditation - written by M. Jean Frisk, The Marian Library/International Marian Research Institute

Jesus did not experience reprobation as if he himself had sinned. But in the redeeming love that always united him to the Father, he assumed us in the state of our waywardness of sin, to the point that he could say in our name from the cross: "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" Having thus established him in solidarity with us sinners, God "did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all", so that we might be "reconciled to God by the death of his Son". -- CCC #602

God, unimaginably, has joined us in our exile--from him! The Lord has accompanied us to Babylon. He, the deliverance and liberation of all peoples, has joined us in the slavery and bondage of sin and death.

The Immortal One embraced death with us, descended to the very depths of Hell for us, and even experienced in a way wholly mysterious to us what it is to feel rejected by the Father: My God, my God, why have you abandoned me? (Ps 22). -- Singing on Alien Soil - in the Restoration Newspaper - Madonna House Apostolate - by Denis Lemieux

"But it's not just the Son who pays a price. The Father says, "I will offer my Son whom I love beyond words. I will see him be broken and rejected and killed. I, who have known only perfect oneness with him through eternity, will take on the anguish of estrangement. I will know the broken heart of a father."-- The 'Shyness' of God - by John Ortberg in Christianity Today Magazine, February 5, 2001

"Among the most solemn Gospel passages are those that give precious glimpses into this relationship between Jesus and his Father. Particularly intense are the episodes leading up to his torture and death. We see him in Gethsemane asking the Father to remove the coming ordeal if possible (Mk 14: 36). Then on the cross he suffers the full abandonment of death: ‘My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?’ (Mk 15: 34). Yet this is not a death without hope: ‘at the very moment when he identifies with our sin, “abandoned” by the Father, he “abandons” himself into the hands of the Father’ (26). -- Suffering shows God’s purpose by Denis J. Hart, Archbishop of Melbourne.

At the same time, the invocation of the dying Redeemer resounds in the liturgy: "My God, my God, why have you abandoned me?" (Mt 27:46; Mk 15:34). Often we hear that this cry of suffering is "ours" in the various painful situations of existence, which can cause deep discomfort and generate preoccupations and uncertainties. In moments of solitude and being lost, not infrequent in our lives, the exclamation can sprout up in the soul of the believer, "The Lord has abandoned me!"

The passion of Christ and his glorification on the Tree of the Cross, however, offer a different light to see such events. On Golgotha, the Father, in the fullness of the sacrifice of his only-begotten Son, does not abandon him. Instead, he is bringing the plan of salvation to completion for all of humanity. In his passion, death, and resurrection, he reveals to us that the last word in human existence is not death, but rather the victory of God over death. Divine love, made fully clear in the Paschal Mystery, conquers death and sin, which is its cause (cf. Rom 5:12). -- Holy Week General Audience - Pope John Paul II, April 19, 2000

"Faith in God the Father Almighty can be put to the test by the experience of evil and suffering. God can sometimes seem to be absent and incapable of stopping evil. But in the most mysterious way God the Father has revealed his almighty power in the voluntary humiliation and Resurrection of his Son, by which he conquered evil. Christ crucified is thus "the power of God and the wisdom of God. For the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men." It is in Christ's Resurrection and exaltation that the Father has shown forth "the immeasurable greatness of his power in us who believe". -- CCC # 272