It is precisely in the death and resurrection of the Son that the one and only twofold "exodus", which gives redeeming value to human suffering, is fully revealed: God’s emergence from Himself to the lowering of the Cross and His return, the coming of beauty which transfigures and redeems and the exodus towards the final victory over suffering and death. The "exitus a Deo" of the incarnated Son culminates in the event of His death, place of the extreme coming of the Eternal Being in human form and likeness. But the suffering and death on the Cross are enlightened in their profound abyss by the "reditus ad Deum" of the Son made flesh, where death has been swallowed up in victory (cf. 1 Corinth.15:54). Between these two exodus, which break the circle of life otherwise closed in the mortal silence of nothingness, the passion and death of the Son of man are the event of the supreme abandonment and of the greater communion of God made flesh.

The supreme abandonment of the crucified God reveals most crudely the infinite transience of existence: "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" (Mc 14,34). The cry of the none hour testifies to the condition of frailty of the dwellers of time, which the Son has come to share. Called to life from nothing, beings seem to be wrapped by nothingness, in the silent mystery of the beginning. No mysticism of suffering and death shall cancel their darkest side, the mysterious and dramatic aspect of suffering with no evident return. We suffer and die alone: loneliness is and remains the toll of the supreme hour. "My soul is sorrowful even to death. Remain here and keep watch with me…."So you could not keep watch with me for one hour?… "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" (Mt 26,38. 40; 27,46). We die in the cry that evokes the cry of the first laceration, sign of an extreme laceration and announcement of birth. In His abandonment the Son has come near the deepest, most unforgettable tragedy. Since then, no man who suffers will ever be as lonely as Him

And nonetheless the Crucifix manifests also the loving face of the hidden One: "Father, into your hands I commend my spirit" (Lk 23,46). To the abandonment the Son unites the communion with the One who abandons Him. The Abandoned One in turn abandons himself by accepting in loving obedience the will of the Father. To the consignment of the One who does not spare his own Son (cf. Rom. 8,32), responds the consignment that the Son makes of Himself (cf. Gal 2,20): passion and death, events of the last abandonment, are lived by Him as supreme acts of freedom and acceptance. The Cross thus reveals the possibility of living the highest detachment as profound closeness. In the suffering of the greatest separation is consumed the fire of love, strong as death (cf. Cor. 8,6). Thus suffering is transformed in love and redemption, as John Paul II recalls in the Apostolic Letter Salvifici doloris on the Christian meaning of human suffering (11 February 1984): "Human suffering has reached its peak in the passion of Christ entering a completely new dimension and in a new order: it has been bound to love" (n.18) "Now I rejoice in my sufferings for your sake, and in my flesh I am filling up what is lacking in the afflictions of Christ on behalf of his body, which is the church" (Col. 1,24), In particular, in faith everyone can donate spiritual sacrifices to please God in the unity with the sacrifice of Christ. This is accomplished especially in the celebration of the Eucharist, where the ministry of the Bishop and of the presbyter is thus configured also as the magisterium of redeeming suffering, the school that forms everyone who is baptised to give his contribution in the union with Christ crucified for the world’s salvation. (cf. Presbyterorum ordinis 2).

And thus, lastly, is grasped the answer to the question: who can live like He, Jesus, lived the unity of laceration and abandonment in the hour of death? Who can, like He has been, abandoned abandon himself in the hands of the Father for love of others? According to the faith in the New Testament distance and proximity to suffering can equally exist through the power of the Consoler: "When Jesus had taken the wine, he said, ‘It is finished.’ And bowing his head, he handed over the spirit" (John19,30). While he sustains the abandoned One to His mortal destiny, the Spirit keeps Him bound to God, allowing Him to make the supreme donation. This is conveyed by the iconography of "Trinitas in Cruce", where the event of the death of the Crucified is depicted as the revelation of the Trinity. The Father holds in His arms the wood of the Cross over which leans the Son overcome by death, while the dove of the Spirit mysteriously separates and unites the Abandoned One and Him who abandons (see the Trinità by Masaccio in the Chuch of Santa Maria Novella in Florence) So "Death is swallowed up in victory. Where, O death, is your victory? Where, O death, is your sting? But thanks be to God who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ." (1 Cor 15,54s. 57). The divine donation of suffering makes possible the supreme donation of faith which suffers and opens to the victory over pain and death. As it is the exodus from the beauty of the love that dies to the Beauty which accepts in transfiguration. The suffering donated by Christ to the Father becomes path and threshold of life, source of light that never sets, redeeming suffering for the strength of the love which transfigures it starting from the infinite compassion of the crucified God.