Reflections on Christ’s Passion offered by exiled priests
Nicaraguan Father Oscar Benavides (left) and Father Ramiro Tijerino were recently released after nearly seven months in a notorious Nicaraguan prison.
As we approach Holy Week and Christ’s Passion, death and resurrection at Easter, the Catholic News Herald asked the priests to reflect on the final expressions of Jesus – what’s known as the Seven Last Words from the Cross.
Before exile, Father Ramiro served as a pastor and as rector of John Paul II University in Managua, the capital of Nicaragua, and Father Oscar served as a pastor and as advisor to the Matagalpa diocese’s Youth Ministry program.
They are both critics of injustice and advocates for Nicaragua’s rural communities, the poor and the marginalized.
They are currently living in Charlotte, where Father Ramiro has family.
FIRST WORD
“Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do.”
The first word of Jesus on the cross is a request to the Father: “Forgive them.” The cause of that forgiveness is His infinite love for humanity, for you, for me, and for all those who crucified Him yesterday and today. In that crucifixion on Calvary, the request for forgiveness has a justification: “because they do not know what they are doing.” What is it that they don’t know? Well, first of all, they don’t know that the one on the cross is innocent. And secondly, that the innocent who is on the cross is the Son of God.
And for us – do we know what we do? I think we do know. And it is perhaps the worst, that knowing that we do evil, we continue to do it. Today the world knows that abortion is the murder of an innocent person, and yet it continues to be carried out and even presented as a “human right.”
We know that war causes the death of many innocents, yet today there are 27 armed conflicts in the world. For all this, today more than ever, we need our Lord to continue asking the Father to forgive us.
And on our side, we need to constantly acknowledge that we are sinners in need of God’s forgiveness. That we do evil knowing that we offend our Lord, thus manifesting the mystery of our freedom very well expressed by St. Paul the Apostle when he tells us: “In fact, I do not do the good that I want, but the evil that I do not want” (Romans 7:19).
Forgive us, Lord, for all our sins, those that we have committed even knowing that it was bad. Forgive also the negative consequences that those sins have left on me, on those I have offended and even on the people I say I love. Give us the grace of repentance and a constant desire to seek Your mercy. Amen.
— Fr. Ramiro Tijerino
SECOND WORD
“Truly I say unto you, today you will be with me in paradise.”
This second word of Jesus is addressed to a man who probably practiced evil for many years. God found him in the most difficult moment of his life and, nevertheless, He granted him the grace that he could see Jesus with his own eyes, that he could recognize Him, as he finally did.
The Church, through this time of Lent and the Easter Triduum, wants us to also stop to meditate on how we are living life, carrying the cross or not.
I say this because there are many moments in our lives, sooner or later, in which we have to face difficult circumstances – for example, unemployment, death of a loved one, illness, injustice, imprisonment for the truth, etc.
And these problems or crosses can separate us from the One who carried the cross, died and rose again. For this reason, we must ask the Holy Spirit to give us
His grace to know how to bear the cross. We must not lose the desire to go to heaven, even if that means without a doubt first going to the cross.
For example, I was in jail because of the truth. For the time I spent there, I accepted it as my moment bearing the cross, and as the space to reflect on how I have lived life with myself, with my family, with my friends and with God.
It was hard being in jail, but God was there. He was the One who assisted us with His strength, patience and humility. Without His grace it would have been impossible to endure as we did.
Brothers and sisters, I invite you to think about this promise of Jesus. Review how you see the crosses in your life: Is it a moment of grace or a disgrace?
— Fr. Óscar Benavides
THIRD WORD
“Woman, behold your son. Son, behold your mother.”
Stripped of everything on the cross, and His life itself being a gift, our Lord gives us the last gift: His mother.
He emerges from the strongest and most natural bond that every human being has. It is the bond with His mother, that mother who accompanied Him to the cross.
Most of His apostles, whom He had called “friends,” abandoned Him. Only John remained, and of course, the Virgin Mary.
When we, all of us, find ourselves in these difficult situations or go through a problem or difficulty that overwhelms us, how much we would like to be children again, to be back in the tender and safe arms of our mother.
Well, that is what those of us who found ourselves in jail, unjustly imprisoned, also experienced. We wanted to be with our mothers.
I personally remember the first visit I received in prison. It was from my mother. She entered the small space guarded by police officers, with her tender and serene look, despite the pain that she surely carried in her heart. We hugged and comforted each other.
Jesus our Lord knows that we will need His mother, who is also our mother.
This does not go against faith in Christ; rather, it is He who gave her to us. So we, like good children and like the apostle John, receive her with joy and take her into our homes and hearts.
She will be watching over us at all times in our lives. So do not hesitate to open the doors of your heart to the one who told us, “Do whatever He tells you” (John 2:5).
Trusting fully in her maternal intercession, Mary is with you at the foot of your cross, she is aware that nothing is missing in your home. She leads us to Jesus.
Thank you, mother, for always being with us! Pray for us, Holy Mother of God!
— Fr. Ramiro Tijerino
FOURTH WORD
“My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”
Sometimes, in difficult situations and circumstances, we also say these words that our Lord cried out at that blessed moment on the cross. And like Him, we do it because the first thing we experience is that feeling of abandonment and loneliness.
For example, the person who goes to the doctor for a routine check-up and receives the news that they have terminal cancer is very likely, I think, to ask why God has abandoned them.
And if we add that this person considers themselves very good, that they help their parish, that they receive Communion every Sunday and that they are also in the parish prayer group, wouldn’t the question be a fair one?
I would answer that, very likely, yes. We are not exempt from feeling or experiencing this loneliness that is born of helplessness, of our human fragility.
Even I, as a priest, when I was in that jail cell, I asked this question – not once but many times. And do you know what the beautiful thing was that happened to us? The Lord Himself visited us!
How? In the Real Presence of the Holy Eucharist. We all cried because we had doubted His word, “I will be with you…” (Matthew 28:20). One of us said kneeling in His Presence, “God is also a prisoner with us.”
Brothers and sisters, God is always with us in good and joyful moments, but He will also be with us in difficult moments. Who can separate us from the love of Jesus Christ? Nobody, nothing. Neither the problems, nor sufferings, nor the difficulties … nor the death.” Let us read Romans 8:35, and take heart.
— Fr. Óscar Benavides
FIFTH WORD
“I thirst.”
Being thirsty is one of our natural needs. We cannot live without water. With this word, our Lord shows us all His humanity. He truly became flesh. He is both God and man, and as a man He totally resembled us, except in sin.
He had already told His disciples on one occasion that He was not a ghost. He is really a man, and He feels pain, tiredness, hunger, etc.
And here on the cross He feels thirsty, the thirst of a tortured person, the thirst of someone who is suffering death and living in true agony.
In St. Mark’s Gospel we are told that the soldiers gave Him wine mixed with myrrh (Mark 15:23). In those times, this mixture served as an anesthetic and drug, thus helping the crucified or the tortured to alleviate and forget their pain. The most interesting thing is that the verse continues: “but He did not take it.”
Thus, while many of us want to escape from the reality of suffering, we would like to have a mixture of “wine and myrrh” that momentarily takes us away from pain.
We would like to have a magic wand that solves all our problems, or a wine and myrrh that makes our cross more bearable and light.
While we think, seek or desire that mixture of “wine and myrrh,” our Lord Jesus rejects it, does not take it, and endures His pain with courage and love.
Love and suffering go hand in hand. He who truly loves, surrenders to the extreme. Behold the thirst of the Son of God.
We too in this world experience tiredness and thirst. There are many who thirst for peace and justice, who thirst for love.
How thirsty some are in our own towns, in Nicaragua, and in the whole world. People thirst for freedom and justice, and only He, the source of living water, can satisfy us and fill all our gaps and shortcomings. He is the living water.
— Fr. Ramiro Tijerino
SIXTH WORD
“It is finished.”
Jesus, dying on the cross, has thus manifested the desire and will of His Father. He Himself will say that His food is to do the will of His Father.
Why is it hard for me to do the will of the Father? Personally, the problem lies in the lack of prayer and holiness.
The saint is one who is in the same tune and frequency with the will of God, and this is the fruit of prayer. And if he has to experience adverse moments, we do not see him renege. On the contrary, he lives it with peace and is happy to suffer it in the name of Jesus.
There are many examples among the saints. To mention one, we see St. Ignatius of Antioch begging the people he shepherded not to stop his being crushed by lions.
Prison is not the place where one can manifest more tranquility and peace. For this reason, we always asked ourselves: Is it God’s will that we be here?
We were not able to get an answer immediately, as we would have liked, but as time went by, God was answering this and other questions.
When we managed to talk to the brothers in other cells, they told us what they had experienced from the moment we entered the prison. It was a joy, because if you were there, God was there too.
Hope returned that one day we would go out. The officers began to treat them better – even the food improved – but above all, many returned to the faith, and there was not a cell where they did not pray the Rosary.
God allowed us to go to jail to save us all physically and spiritually. “Everything is accomplished.” Let’s ask ourselves: Was all this for me?
— Fr. Óscar Benavides
SEVENTH WORD
“Father, into your hands I commend my spirit.”
The whole life of Jesus was a constant prayer. No activity was carried out, not a decision was made without first praying. And when His disciples asked Him: “Lord, teach us to pray” (Luke 11:1), He invited His disciples to say: “Father ...”
Here, in this last word, in this moment of agony and death, but which is also a moment of encounter, pray saying: “Father.”
Surely Jesus spoke in Aramaic, in which the word would have been “Abba.” This word was typically used only inside the home, as it connoted intimacy and a special relationship. It was an expression of filial love, but a love that was felt and lived, just as a child who approaches his father experiences it.
Thus the Son of God gives Himself to His dad, to His Abba, to His father, and with this He restores that relationship between God and men, a relationship that had been broken because of sin.
Jesus gives Himself to His Father so that He can be raised from the dead. He surrenders His spirit to the Father with the confidence of the Son, with the hope that
His Father will give Him the name above all names, that is, with the hope of the resurrection.
This is the confidence and hope with which we, who are also children of God, must face death and experience each event of our lives.
With the death of Christ, death is defeated as the final destiny of the human being. In this way we can, with great faith and hope, say with the apostle Paul that “neither death nor life nor angels nor principalities nor present nor future nor powers nor height nor depth nor any other creature will be able to separate us from the love of God manifested in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Romans 8:38-39).
— Fr. Ramiro Tijerino
