“He Took It All for Us”
Father Peter Fitzgibbons
March 28 – 29, 2026
Gospel: Matthew 26:14-27:66
The Gospel about the Passion is so hard to read, and not just the subject matter, but also the English. Every sentence begins with a preposition and an ‘and’. Catholic school grammar taught me to never begin a sentence with ‘and.’ No. The run-on sentences make me wonder whether they were paid to write a college term paper and were trying to stretch it to 20 pages. Also, no crowd yells in perfect English, “Let Him be crucified.” What crowd in the world talks like that and in complete sentences? Jesus replied to Pilate, “You say so.” I have been a priest for over 40 years, and I’ve never heard that translation.
It’s good to study Scripture in the context of the culture. Do you know what gall is? Most of us have a gall bladder. Gall can also be defined as hutzpah, pride, and arrogance. But that’s not what this means. Gall in the ancient world was a narcotic. Jesus was offered wine laced with gall. Why? Both wine and gall suppress pain. They offered it to Jesus to help ease the pain during His crucifixion. What else does a narcotic do? It suppresses respiration and would have hastened His death. But Jesus refused it, not just once, but twice. It was another temptation on the Cross. He took upon Himself the true pain of sin for all men, for all people, for all time. He did not seek any lessening of that pain. He took it all for us.
I knew this man named Mike Way. I use the past tense because Mike has passed. I remember talking to him one night down at Carolina Beach. Mike lived a wild life, but he had come back to the Church and was very devout. He developed cancer, and the doctors couldn’t fix him. Near the end, Mike was in so much pain that it was difficult for him to sleep. He told me, “Father, I sleep in that chair.” I asked him, “Mike, do you want to up your meds? When you are in that kind of pain, the doctors can increase your meds.” He said, “No.” I asked him why not. Mike said, “I look at the Crucifix and think, He suffered that much for me, so I will suffer this much for Him.”
Father’s Reflections:
I saw a news report from back home in Rhode Island. Saint Mary’s church will be closed by the Diocese of Warwick, my old diocese. They’ve closed a lot of churches there. Saint Mary’s was the church of my father’s family. Three other churches have been closed in that same area. The bishop had said that they were doing great. Then why are you closing three churches? The lack of priests is the reason. Well, you caused it, so just own up to it. They closed my mother’s church, the church where she was married. She and two of her sisters were married at the same time in that church. I didn’t know that until my cousin told me. I’ve seen pictures of my Uncle Norman, who, with his big ears, looked like dumbo from behind. The church property is right across the street from the hospital and next to a funeral home. It’s a great location for a church. However, there’s a problem with selling the property, and one that the diocese was unaware of. My grandparents lived a block away, so I heard this story as a young man. In the 1800’s, two priests who served at that church died and were buried somewhere on the church grounds. The funny thing is that they don’t know where on the property the two priests are buried. Oops! Usually, in the death book, you record the cause of death and the place of burial. Apparently, they did not do that when these priests died. Good luck! Now the diocese must go play “Where’s Father Waldo?” because you really cannot sell the property with two dead guys buried somewhere on it. Nice.
How will you apply this message to your life? _________________________________________
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