We are now in the final stage of the Passion. Suddenly out of its blackness, the silence is broken by a cry - so terrible, so unforgettable, that even those who did not understand the dialect remembered the strange tones: "Eli, Eli, lamma sabacthani". They recorded it so, a rough rendering of the Hebrew, because they could never get the sound of those tones out of their ears all the days of their life. The darkness which was covering the Earth at that moment was only the external symbol of the dark night of the soul within. Well indeed might the sun hide its face, at the terrible crime of deicide. A real reason why the Earth was made was to have a Cross erected upon it. And now that the Cross was erected, creation felt the pain and went into darkness. But why the cry of darkness? Why the cry of abandonment: "My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?" It was the cry of atonement for sin. Sin is the abandonment of God by man; it is the creature forsaking the Creator, as a flower might abandon the sunlight which gave its strength and beauty. Sin is a separation, a divorce - the original divorce from unity with God, whence all other divorces are derived.

Since He came on Earth to redeem men from sin, it was therefore fitting that He feel that abandonment, that separation, that divorce. He felt it first internally, in His soul, as the base of a mountain, if conscious, might feel abandoned by the sun when a cloud drifted about it, even though its great heights were radiant with light. There was no sin in His soul, but since He willed to feel the effect of sin, an awful sense of isolation and loneliness crept over Him - the loneliness of being without God. He even went so far as to redeem all those who will not trust, who in sorrow and misery curse and abandon God, crying out: "Why this death? Why should I lose my property? Why should I suffer?" He atoned for all these things by asking a "Why" of God.

What happened there on the Cross that day is happening now in the Mass, with this difference: On the Cross the Saviour was alone; in the Mass He is with us. Our Lord is now in Heaven at the right hand of the Father, making intercession for us. He therefore can never suffer again in His human nature but He can suffer again in our human natures. He cannot renew Calvary in His physical body, but He can renew it in His Mystical Body - the Church. The Sacrifice of the Cross can be re-enacted provided we give Him our body and our blood, and give it to Him so completely that as His own, He can offer Himself anew to His heavenly Father for the redemption of His Mystical Body, the Church.

So the Christ goes out into the world gathering up other human natures who are willing to be Christs. In order that our sacrifices, our sorrows, our Golgothas, our crucifixions, may not be isolated, disjointed, and unconnected, the Church collects them, harvests them, unifies them, coalesces them, masses them, and this massing of all our sacrifices of our individual human natures is united with the Great Sacrifice of Christ on the Cross in the Mass.