St. Boniface House

“‘Having said this he breathed his last.’ Dead. Jesus is dead…We are told in John 1:18 that without the Son no one can see the Father. Von Balthasar, therefore, reminds us ‘when the Son, the Word of the Father is dead, then no one can see God, hear of him or attain him. And this day exists, when the Son is dead, and the Father, accordingly, inaccessible.’ This is the terror, the silence of the Father, to which Jesus has committed himself, this is why he cried the cry of abandonment. He has commended himself to the Father so he might undergo the dark night of death. Jesus commends himself to the Father, becoming for us all that is contrary to God.”

     –Stanley Hauerwas, Cross-Shattered Christ: Meditations on the Seven Last Words, 97.