The Seven Last Words, by Venerable Fulton John Sheen
The Fifth Word
I thirst.
This is the shortest of the seven cries. Although it stands in our language as twro words, in the original it is one. At the moment when Our Saviour resumes His sermon, it is not a curse upon those who crucified Him, not a word of reproach to the timid disciples at the border of the crowd, not a cry of scorn to the Roman soldiers, not a word of hope to Magdalen, not a word of love to John, not a word of farewell to His own mother. It is not even to God at this moment! Out from the depths of the Sacred Heart there wells through parched lips one awful word "I thirst!"
He, the God-Man, Who threw the stars in their orbits and spheres into space, Who "swung the earth a trinket at His wrist," from Whose finger tips tumbled planets and worlds, Who might have said that the sea is Mine and with it the streams in a thousand valleys and the cataracts in a thousand hills, now asks man - man, a piece of His own handiwork - to help Him. He asks man for a drink! Not a drink of earthly water - that is not what He meant - but a drink of love. I thirst for love!
The last word was a revelation of the sufferings of a man without God; this word was a revelation of the sufferings of a God without man. Before it was man without God; now it is God without man. The Creator cannot live without the creature, the Shepherd without the sheep, the thirst of Christ's love without the soul-water of Christians.
But what has He done to be entitled to my love? How much has God loved me? Oh! If I would know how much God has loved me, then let me sound the depths of meaning of that word "love," a word so often used and so little understood. Love, first of all means to give, and that is Creation. Love means to tell secrets to the one loved, and that is Revelation. Love means to suffer for the one loved, and that is Redemption. Love means also to become one with the one loved, not only in the unity of flesh but in the unity of spirit, and that is the Eucharist. Love wishes also to be eternally united with the one loved, and that is Heaven.
Certainly, love has exhausted itself. There is nothing more that Christ could do for His vineyard than He has done. Having poured forth all the waters of His everlasting Love on our poor parched hearts, it is no wonder that He thirsts for Love. If love is reciprocal then certainly He has a right to our love. Yet, why do we not respond? Why do we let the Divine Heart die of the thirst for human hearts? With what justice He might complain: "Alack, thou knowest not How little worthy of any love thou art! Whom wilt thou find to love ignoble thee, Save Me, save only Me!"*
Prayer
Dear Jesus, Thou hast given all for me, and yet I give nothing in return. How often Thou hast come to gather vintage in the vineyard of my soul, and hast found only a few clusters! How often thou soughtest, and found nothing; knocked and the door of my soul was closed to Thee! How often Thou didst ask for a drink, and I gave Thee only vinegar and gall!
How often, dear Jesus, I feared lest having Thee, I must have naught beside. I forget that if I had the flame, I would forget the spark; if I had the sun of Thy love, I could forget the candle of a human heart; if I had the perfect round of Thy happiness, I could forget the broken arc of earth. Oh, Jesus, my story is the sad story of a refusal to return heart for heart, love for love. Give me, above all human gifts, the sweet gift of sympathy for Thee.
"Am I a stone and not a sheep
That I can stand, O Christ, beneath Thy Cross
To number drop by drop Thy Blood's slow loss,
And yet not weep?
"Yet give not o'er,
But seek Thy sheep, true Shepherd of the flock,
Greater than Moses, turn and look once more
And smite a rock."
- Christina Rosetti
