Father Raymond J. de Souza: The 7 Last Words and the Nicene Creed: ‘I Thirst’

Editor’s note: For more than 20 years, Father Raymond de Souza has preached the “Seven Last Words” devotion, a traditional meditation on the seven times Jesus speaks from the cross on Good Friday. Made famous in recent times by the Venerable Fulton J. Sheen, the meditations are usually organized around a particular theme. For 2025, Father de Souza chose the Nicene Creed as his theme, as the Catholic Church marks this year the 1,700th anniversary of the Council of Nicaea. These meditations were preached at Holy Cross parish in Kemptville, Ontario, where Father de Souza is the pastor. The first three parts are here, here, here and here.

COMMENTARY: The fifth word from the cross points to Christ’s real bodily suffering — and his divine thirst for our salvation — as foretold in Scripture and confessed in the Creed.

“After this, when Jesus knew that all was now finished, he said (in order to fulfill the scripture), ‘I thirst.’ A jar full of sour wine was standing there. So they put a sponge full of the wine on a branch of hyssop and held it to his mouth” (John 19:28-29).

The fifth word from the cross is the shortest: “I thirst.”

It is the only time that Jesus speaks of his physical pain and suffering. The sufferings were intense. Along the Via Crucis, we mark those three falls of Jesus. The suffering and the pain under the weight of the cross were pushing Jesus down. We know that his passion took an enormous physical toll, because after Jesus had died on the cross, and the report is given to Pilate, he is surprised that Jesus has died so quickly. It was possible for people to hang on a cross for days. The debilitating cruelty of the Passion — the scourging, the crowning with thorns — had already weakened Jesus. …

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