Feeling Abandoned

And about three o’clock Jesus cried with a loud voice . . . “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”

– Matthew 27:46

The Wild Reed’s 2024 Holy Week series continues with a third excerpt from Joyce Rupp’s 2023 book Jesus, Companion in My Suffering: Reflections for the Lenten Journey.

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Jesus felt left alone and forgotten. He lost all sense of consolation by the very one he had trusted as his Abba – the tender Father he communed with in his night vigils. No wonder his voice pierced the air with that anguished cry saturated with despair. Those words of Jesus declared the ultimate sense of defeat, empty and departed of hope. In his bleak hours of not only being crucified but also feeling desperately forsaken, Jesus knew the pain of an awareness of divine presence known to provide desperate relief from the fear of oblivion now being vanquished.

Decades ago, I sat by the bedside of a community member. She was my spiritual mentor, a woman fully committed to daily prayer and union with her Beloved. Sr. Perpetua’s physical pain came from bone cancer, but it was her spiritual suffering that startled me. She who had relished such a strong union with the Divine, whispered in a frail voice: “I’m unable to pray. Everything is dark. I can’t find God. Please pray for me.”

Her experience led me to open my heart to persons unable to conjure even a whisper of felt faith. If we ourselves have not been ambushed by this sense of being deserted by the Holy One, we can steadfastly support those who have felt such agony.


Desolate One,
how fully you lived our human experience,
even to the most utter barrenness of soul.
If my faith in you becomes just a distant memory,
remind me of your forsaken cry from the Cross
and draw me close to your empathetic heart.


Today: I remember how I have known the Holy One's steadfast love.

– Joyce Rupp
Excerpted from Jesus, Companion in My Suffering:
Reflections for the Lenten Journey
Ave Maria Press, 2023
pp. 102-103

NEXT: Joy Beyond Suffering


See also the previous Wild Reed posts:
• No Deeper Darkness
• The Passion of Christ – Jesus Goes to His Execution
• The Passion of Christ – Jesus is Nailed the Cross
• The Passion of Christ – Jesus Dies
• Suffering and Redemption
• A Vortex of the Miraclulous

Image: Giovanni Gasparro.