Editor’s Note: The Seven Last Words, taped at EWTN April 11, will be broadcast on Good Friday at 5 p.m. Eastern, hosted by Father Raymond J. de Souza.

INTRODUCTION The Scandals in the Church and the Scandal of the Cross

I “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.”

II “Today you will be with me in paradise.”

III “Woman, behold your Son. Behold your Mother.”

IV “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”

V “I thirst.”

VI “Father, into your hands I commend my spirit.”

VII “It is finished.

The final word from the cross: It is finished. Jesus is not passive. He is the priest offering the sacrifice. As he told Pilate, earthly kings have no power over him unless the Father permitted it. He is also the victim, not passive like a bull or goat, but a Son obedient to the will of the Father. Jesus works, as his Father continues to work. And now the work is finished. Jesus has done what he was sent to do and now declares it finished.

Jesus dies on the cross. In the long tradition of Christian art, an honored place is given to the Pietà, which portrays the dead body of Christ taken down from the cross and placed in the arms of his Blessed Mother. Michelangelo’s Pietà might be the most famous sculpture in the history of the world; certainly more people see it than any other when they enter St. Peter’s Basilica. This past week the whole world has seen the Pietà of the high altar of Notre Dame de Paris which survived the fire.

In the Pietà, the strife is now over. The agony is finished. The body is in repose. The Son is in the arms of his Mother. Surely Mary is remembering when the Infant Jesus slept in her arms, in Bethlehem, in Egypt, in Nazareth. And now he sleeps again.

Can we tolerate a God who sleeps? Do we not need a God who works? Is there not too much to be done to clean up the Church for rest and repose?

And so we ask, for the love the God, for the love of the Church, for the love of the little ones who Jesus calls to himself, for the love the men with whom Jesus shares his priesthood, for the love of the Gospel, for the love all that is true, all that is honorable, all that is just, all that is pure, all that is lovely, all that is gracious, all that is excellent, all that is worthy of praise (Philippians 1:8), we ask Jesus: Are you asleep? Do you not see all that is happening in your Church?

Jesus sleeps now on the cross. But he sees it all. And while he sleeps he does not abandon us. He sleeps, but he will awake, and he will say the word that calms the storm which tosses the ship of faith.

In his final audience in February 2013, Benedict returned to one of his favourite biblical images, that of Jesus asleep in the boat, an image both troubling and consoling.

“The Lord gave us days of sun and of light breeze, days in which the fishing was good. There were also moments when there were stormy waters and headwinds ... as if God was sleeping. But I always knew that God was in that boat, and I always knew that the boat of the Church is not mine, is not ours, but is His and He will not let it sink.”

We return now to the Via Crucis at the Colosseum in 2005. We end where we started, with Cardinal Ratzinger’s meditation for the Ninth Station.

“Lord, your Church often seems like a boat about to sink, a boat taking in water on every side. In your field we see more weeds than wheat. The soiled garments and face of your Church throw us into confusion. Yet it is we ourselves who have soiled them! It is we who betray you time and time again, after all our lofty words and grand gestures. Have mercy on your Church; within her, too, Adam continues to fall. When we fall, we drag you down to earth, and Satan laughs, for he hopes that you will not be able to rise from that fall; he hopes that being dragged down in the fall of your Church, you will remain prostrate and overpowered. But you will rise again. You stood up, you arose, and you can also raise us up. Save and sanctify your Church. Save and sanctify us all.”

It is finished.

Glory be to the Father …