The Lesson Of The Cry

Inde est quod caput nostrum Dominus Jesus Christus omnia in se corporis sui membra transformans, quod olim in psalmo eructaverat, id in supplicio crucis sub redemptorum suorum voce clamabat: Deus, Deus meus, respice in me: quare me dereliquisti? Vox ista, dilectissimi, doctrina est, non querela. Nam cum in Christo Dei et hominis una persona sit, nec ab eo potuerit relinqui a quo non poterat separari, pro nobis trepidis et infirmis interrogat cur caro pati metuens exaudita non fuerit. Instante enim passione ad sanandum et corrigendum nostrae fragilitatis metum dixerat: Pater, si possibile est, transeat a me calix iste; verumtamen non sicut ego volo, sed sicut tu, et iterum: Pater, si non potest hic calix transire, nisi bibam illum, fiat voluntas tua. Qui ergo trepidatione carnis evicta, jam in paternam transierat voluntatem, et toto mortis terrore calcato, opus suae constitutionis implebat, cur in ipso tantae victoriae exaltatus triumpho, causam et rationem qua sit relictus, id est non exauditus, inquirit, nisi ut ostendat alium esse illum affectum, quem ad humanae formidinis excusationem recepit, alium illum quem ex aeterno placito Patris pro mundi reconciliatione praeelegit? Unde ipsa vox non exauditi, magni est expositio sacramenti, quod nihil humano generi conferret Redemptoris potestas, si quod petebat nostra obtineret infirmitas. Sanctus Leo Magnus, Sermo LXVII

Hence it is that the our head Lord Jesus Christ, in himself shaping all the members of His body in Himself, for those whom He was redeeming in the punishment of the cross, cried out that which He had once called out in the psalm, 'O God, My God, look upon Me, why have You forsaken Me?' That cry, dearly beloved, is a lesson, not a complaint. For since in Christ there is one person of God and man, and He could not have been forsaken by Him from Whom He could not be separated, it is for us, trembling and infirm, that He asks why the flesh fearing to suffer has not been heard. Indeed at the beginning of the Passion, to cure and correct our weak fear, He had said, 'Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from Me. Nevertheless not as I will but as You.' And again, 'Father, if this cup cannot pass except I drink it, Your will be done.' As therefore He had conquered the trembling of the flesh, and had conformed to the Father's will, trampling down all terror of death, fulfilling the work of His design, why in His triumph, with such a victory, does He ask for the cause and reason of why He is forsaken, that is, not heard, unless to show that the feeling which He received in excuse of His human fears is quite different from the deliberate choice which, in accordance with the Father's eternal decree, He had made for the reconciliation of the world? And thus the very cry unheard is the exposition of a great mystery, that the Redeemer's power would have conferred nothing on the human race if our infirmity had obtained what it sought. Pope Leo the Great, Sermon 67