A few minutes before the end the Saviour allows His head to fall forward and He declares: "It is consummated." The most natural interpretation to give to this word is that it refers to His life which is now at an end. It has two phases, that life, the period of suffering and humiliation and the period of glorious triumph. Soon after the suffering phase is consummated the black clouds part and the sun shines through in all the splendour of the first Easter.
To follow Christ is to reproduce, through correspondence with His divine grace, each of these two phases. At present the soul is toiling after Him to Calvary; what, then, is it to expect but a sharing in the opposition and cruelty that was His portion? "Wonder not if the world hate you." "You are not of the world, as I also am not of the world. If you had been of the world, the world would love its own. But, because you are not of the world, but I have chosen you out of the world, therefore the world hateth you."
Soon it will be the second phase. Soon the soul may confidently hope to follow Him to glory. In the measure that the soul has been fashioned in the way of suffering and humiliation, in the same measure will it share in the glory of Christ's triumph. "He that humbleth himself shall be exalted."
"Father, into Thy hands I commend My spirit." "Father" exemplifies faith, like Our Lady's "Ecce ancilla Domini" only in Our Lord, of course, faith gave way to vision. "Into Thy hands" shows boundless trust, like Mary offering herself "according to thy word" both leaving themselves unreservedly in His hands. "I commend My spirit," this is love or charity, which always wants to give. Christ gives into the Father's hands the gift of Himself, just as Mary did when she said her "fiat mihi."
This absolute confiding trust of Our Lord at death is due, of course, to the inviolable fidelity with which He always obeyed the Will of His Father. "I came down from heaven, not to do My own Will, but the Will of Him that sent Me." Hence the dying of Christ is a shout of victory, "crying out with a loud voice," for to serve God is to reign.
Can death be robbed of its terrors? Many friends of God have gone to meet death with a smile of joy and eager expectancy on their faces. Like Him the faithful servant and devoted son of God has tried all through those years behind to do God's Will unswervingly. There have been failures, many failures, perhaps, and even very serious failures as the poor soul toiled under the weight of the cross. But at least the effort has been maintained, at least the soul has repented, and, as it nears the last few miles of the journey, its confidence mounts, for it knows in Whom it has trusted.
Little does it matter now to the soul that it has been very popular or much travelled or successful in big business all such things simply cease to count. One thought now sustains the soul, one fact only will be able to give the soul solid comfort: that the dying person can lift up his eyes till they look full into the eyes of Christ and can say that, like Him, he has tried consistently to do God's Will in his particular sphere of life. This assurance emboldens the soul to cry out: "Into Thy hands, O Lord, I commend my spirit."