Lord Jesus, you are within my soul thanks to your Eucharist with all the power of your divinity and all your grace and all the love that you have shown me always. I embrace you and thank you for the gift of your presence. You are really present for me in the Sacrament of the altar. The appearance of bread hides you from my eyes, but with the eyes of faith I know it is you because it was your word that said, "This is my Body and this is my Blood." And you gave your power to your Church to make you present. I believe in you. I believe in the Sacrament. I believe in your Church.  

I hope in you that as I make my retreat, I will extract all the good that you have prepared for me and bring to good fruit all of the reflections and the graces that you gave me, so that I will grow to love you, and love you as I ought, putting you before everything and trying to love you in the same measure as you have loved me.  

I thank you for the time that you spend with me. I thank you for the fidelity of so many generations of Christians that have handed down to me your Sacraments and your gifts. I thank you for the apostles that you have sent in every age and for those who gave me the faith so that I could be here with you today.  

I want to offer myself to you for you to use me, to make sure that your gifts reach as many people as possible. Take me, Lord, and use me. 

Once more, Mary, I take your hand, and I ask you to guide me as I listen to your Son speak to me and as I open my heart to his inspirations. 

And St. John's description of the Passion of Christ continues. "To fulfill scripture perfectly, he said, 'I am thirsty.' A jar full of vinegar stood there, so putting a sponge full of vinegar on a hyssop stick, they held it up to his mouth. After Jesus had taken the vinegar he said, 'It is accomplished.' And bowing his head, he gave up his spirit."  

Physical thirst and beyond: 

Listen to Christ on the Cross saying to us, "I am thirsty." The thirst that comes with the agony of crucifixion is excruciating, very real. So Jesus expresses here the agony of the physical thirst he felt, but St. John here tries to make sure that we also understand that Jesus' thirst was not just physical. He says that Jesus cried out in order "to fulfill Scripture perfectly." There is something else about this thirst of Jesus that John is asking us to consider. What other thirst could there be besides the physical thirst that Jesus was suffering? What other insight do these words give into what was going on in the heart of Christ as he was being crucified? "I am thirsty." Often we ourselves use these words to mean, "I really want something, I can't do without something." Thirst has to be satisfied or else we die. You know you can last two months without eating, but you can't last very long without drinking, without taking water. So when we really desire something, we say we thirst. A person can thirst for revenge, right? So thirst is to desire something strongly. What does Jesus desire strongly on the cross? 

1. Thirst for souls 

Take the man Jesus talks about who prepared his banquet and made all the arrangements and fixed all the food, and then sends out for the people that had been invited to that banquet, and these same people say they can't come. "I just bought my oxen, I just got married, hold me excused I can't come." But since he has prepared a banquet, he says to his servants, "Go out into the highways and byways and everybody that you meet invite them into my banquet, get everybody in here." Jesus on the cross is saying that, "This banquet of graces are here, all of this redemption... I want everyone to come and take of all they need. I don't want all I have gone through to be useless. I want people to come and take advantage of it."  

It is like when there were some catastrophes south of the border in Mexico some years ago; other countries shipped tons upon tons of grain for relief. It arrived at the ports but the distribution system had been affected, so they got what they could to the people, but there were still mountains of grain rotting in the ports while people were still dying of hunger inland. So when Jesus on the cross says, "I am thirsty," he wants everyone to go to him so that they can partake of the abundance of the Redemption that he has brought us. He wants everything that he has done not to be in vain, he doesn't want it to be fruitless. He is thirsting for souls to come and drink. Remember what he said to the Samaritan woman? "If you only knew what God is offering and who it was that is saying to you 'Give me something to drink' (This is the same as 'I am thirsty, isn't it?), you would have been the one to ask, and he would have given you living water."  

2. Thirst for apostles 

Christ on the cross is looking around; he is nailed on the cross, he has done what he was called to do, his physical life on earth is ending. He will rise from the dead and will be present in a different way afterwards, but he is no longer going to walk the paths of Palestine, no longer going to knock on doors, nor will he preach in the Temple again, or on the side of the path, or from the boats on the water. He will no longer be physically there to feed the five thousand, to heal, pardon sins, or be moved with pity and teach the people because they were like sheep without a shepherd. He is not going to be present like that any more, yet he still wants his message and redemption to reach all people. He needs those who will bring his redemption to others. He thirsts for a special kind of follower, one who will not only come and find his own personal redemption at the foot of the Cross, but one who will COME, and then GO, to bring what he has found to others. He thirsts for messengers, apostles, so that they will bring the good news and redemption to others. In the beginning he needed people who would go as far as Rome and teach the Romans that their gods were false, that their pursuits were empty, that Christ was the Redeemer. He needed people to go and teach the Greeks. He needed people to go as far as the Indies. When he says, "I thirst," he is saying, will you take what you have received and spread it? I need apostles. Bring it to your home, to your school, to your friends, to your profession... don't let my Passion be in vain.  

It is just like when he multiplied the loaves: he will do the miracle, but he needs the apostles to break the bread and bring the miracle to the people. The Eucharist, the same sacrifice of the Cross that redeems us, he takes it and he gives it to you and me and says to us, "Now you go and give this to souls." He is thirsty for souls. He wants people to receive what he has given. From the cross he is saying, "My life as a man among you, living as you live, is over, but what I have come for has only started. I need hands, I need hearts, I need tongues, I need feet, I need lives. I need thirst for them." He is thirsting for us, that we will come and be the disciples he needs, that we will be this presence in the world. He wants that, when the message reaches us it doesn't stop there; that we won't be mute Christians who can't speak the words of God, who can't spread the message of God, who are deaf to the needs of the world.  

3. The thirsting Christ in front of me 

There is another meaning to his thirst. Read the parable of the judgment in Matthew 25. "When have we seen you hungry and fed you, when did we see you thirsty and give you to drink?" the just ask in surprise. "Whenever you did it to the least of my brothers you did it to me". Jesus has identified himself with us: any person who thirsts, Christ thirsts in him. Any time we feed the hungry or give to drink to the thirsty, we do so to Christ. So when we hear Christ on the cross say, "I am thirsty" and wish we could do something about it, he is reminding us to look around to discover him thirsting in our neighbor.  

Open your eyes to the physical needs of those around us. Open your eyes to the spiritual thirst of those around you. "Who is going to bring me peace, who is going to bring me hope, who is going to bring me meaning to my life, bring me salvation?"  

It's terribly easy for us as Christians, as followers of Jesus Christ, to be judgmental. We have the gift of the faith, and it's very easy for us to want to create a little enclave where we will be safe from the world around us. But Christ on the cross is calling out against the walls we build around ourselves, looking out perhaps with disdain on those who have not yet received this gift. Do not turn away, listen to Christ say through them "I am thirsty", and give of the gift you have received. What about the kid down the dormitory hall who lives a different lifestyle to you, is he not thirsting? And your friend who no longer practices his faith, or the ones who express their hunger and thirst in their excesses? How are you going to give them to drink - by hiding your faith?  

What was Christ's reaction when the world was in sin? He didn't hold onto his divinity; he gave all of that up and took upon himself the human condition. Remember that beautiful hymn that St. Paul quotes in Philippians. Are you able to do the same? Are you able to hear the thirst of those around? Or are their needs, their weakness, and the sin of the world, just an excuse for us to feel like a Pharisee, separated and holier than others? Or do you hear their cry? Sheep without a shepherd, who will teach them? Who will give them hope? Who will bring comfort and solace into lives that are so often full of distress, full of suffering? Who will give hope to other young people? Will we let Christ's reminder, by saying in their place "I thirst", jog us out of our complacency and superficiality, and urge us to spend our lives in service, bringing the gospel to those who thirst for it, perhaps without knowing that they do? On the cross when Jesus said to us, "I'm thirsty," he also speaks for those people who are waiting for us. What will he say to me after my life is over, "I was thirsty and you gave me to drink", or "where were you when I thirsted, were you not able to think of others instead of yourself alone?"  

Questionnaire: 

To help you to examine your life, in the light of the inspirations God just gave you in these moments you shared with him. 

1. What is my response to the sufferings Christ underwent on the Cross? 

2. What thirst and needs do I see in those who are closest to me? 

3. What am I prepared to do to spread the truth and light of the faith to those I am more in contact with?