"Father, into your hands I commit my spirit."
by Fr. Neil Tenefrancia
Each year, during Lent, we remember the 40 years of desert-wandering of the Israelites as they journeyed from Egypt to Mount Sinai. From the standpoint of our Christian faith, the journey from Egypt to Sinai is not only a journey from worldly slavery to freedom but also the pattern of our itinerary from various evil realities to the presence of the Father. It is the pattern of our personal and communal search for the face of God after we have run away from him through our pride and ingratitude. It is the pattern of God actively remembering and liberating us in the midst of our sinful human situations. In other words, it is the story of a God who, even when we have deserted him, continues to walk with us even without our knowing it.
The journey back to the Father is best illustrated by the “Our Father” read in reverse. The seven petitions of the Our Father, when read backwards, is our itinerary from sin to grace—from being slaves to becoming free men as people of the New Covenant. In the Pater-Noster-in-reverse, we are given the template of the process of liberating ourselves from our own “Egypts” towards the freedom of God’s “Sinai” with him as our only and real Father: we are made to realize the ugliness and ignominy of the various unfreedoms in our lives—many of which had become comfortable to us; we are made to accept our propensities to give in to our favorite temptations; we are made to undergo the uncomfortable experience of forgiving and being forgiven; we are presented the need to clarify and correct our thinking, feeling, and motivational errors about our concept of “daily bread;” we are made aware of the discrepancies between my-kingdom and God’s kingdom; and we made to realize the gravity of bearing the holy name of God in our persons as Christians.
Clearly, the God of the Exodus and the God of the Christian Paschal Mystery is the same God who walks with us even in the midst of our evils—all the way from Egypt to Sinai, from evil to the Father, from slavery to freedom. And it is in this context that we can gain insight into the deeper meaning and implications of Jesus’ final cry on the Cross: “Father, into your hands I commit my spirit!”
The “spirit,” in Greek anthropology, is the noblest part of man—the source of his dignity, identity, and motivation. (This is why it is invoked in the greeting of each Mass “And with your spirit!”) Through and in the spirit, we know who we are, we live what we are, and desire what we should become. In the case of Jesus’ sacred humanity, at the moment of his death, the noblest part of him-- his spirit never ceased to be the spirit of the divine person of the Son. The spirit of the humanity of Jesus was always the spirit of Jesus as the second person of the Trinity. So why did he entrust his spirit to his Father when in fact they were actually inseparable?
…perhaps because he wanted to draw us to the original Exodus experience of a God who was always accompanying his people enslaved in Egypt even in the midst of their unfreedoms, disobedience, indecisions, and in their arduous journey towards liberation
….perhaps because he wanted to emphasize that his Paschal Mystery—his suffering, death, and resurrection is the ultimate fulfillment of the said Exodus mystery. In the passion of his sacred humanity, he was illustrating par excellence the mystery of a God who is in total solidarity and synodality with man’s fragile humanity
The last words of Jesus were, thus, not only a prayer but a statement of a fact. He is the God who, through his spirit that was always inseparable with the Father, has always and will always be with his people--- even through the horror of the passion and the terror of death. It is also an expression of Jesus’ prayer that just as he and his Father are one, we may finally be one with him in the inner life of the Trinity.
The joy of the experience will be like the joy of an OFW returning home to his or her homeland and beloved family. It will be akin to the joy of a homecoming to life’s cherished and unforgettable companions and memories. It will be like the joys of slaves entering the Promised Land as sons and rightful heirs, not anymore as an oppressed or exploited people. It will be like the happiness of men and women plagued by various evils and coming home at last into the presence of the Father--- from malo to Pater Noster, from Egypt to Sinai, from slavery to freedom, from slaves to sons and daughters. This is the joy of Easter!
Prayer:
Lord God, after our long, painful, and arduous journey through this desert of trials and sufferings, console us with the certainty of your presence and to the reality that even if we do not always recognize it, you are always with us through the murkiness and loathsomeness of our own evils.
May our spirits, like that of your Son, never be separated from you, but finally find its rest in your Sinai—in your holy mountain. There, we will relish the joy of having you always as a friend, companion, and co-wanderer in all our travails and pains, in our triumphs and joys, and in our anxieties and fears. Lead us and walk with us always in our own paschal mysteries. And let this be ever be our prayer and act of faith: Father, into your hands I commit my spirit!
