Jesus’ final words, “It is finished,” resound through history, a mission consummated on the Cross and continued by his faithful across the centuries.
Newsroom (03/04/2026 Gaudium Press ) “It is finished.” The final word from the Cross, uttered by Christ on that dark Friday at Golgotha, echoes through every age. In Latin, consummatum est — it is consummated, completed, accomplished. Yet what is finished is not left behind. It endures, alive within every act of faith and sacrifice that flows from that moment when eternity touched the temporal, and divine love sealed humanity’s redemption.
On that afternoon, the Passion reached its summit. Two days later, in the quiet village of Emmaus, the Risen Christ made the meaning of those words radiantly clear — that what had been finished had also begun anew. On Sunday evening, in the Upper Room, he sent forth his apostles with a solemn charge: “As the Father sent me, even so I send you.” The mission born upon the Cross would not conclude at Calvary; it would unfold upon every altar, through every generation, as love made present again and again.
Windows That Tell a Living Gospel
If we were to cast the faith into glass today, the stained windows of a modern cathedral might bear the image of Archbishop Fulton Sheen, a twentieth-century evangelist who carried the light of that same mission into homes and hearts across America. Yet in the windows of St. Mary’s Cathedral in Ogdensburg stand saints whose lives form a living Gospel: Father Damien of Molokai among lepers, Marguerite d’Youville, Rose Hawthorne, Frances Xavier Cabrini — each bringing healing as Christ did. So too, the frontier priests who celebrated the first Masses in the vast reaches of New York carried forward the same sacred “It is finished.”
The Cross, consummated once in history, continues its work upon every altar and within every soul baptized into its mystery. It is not an ending but an unbroken continuation — the timeless mission of redemption entrusted to each new disciple.
The History of Two Anniversaries
Nations consecrate their history in moments of political birth, but the Church commemorates the dawning of grace in the souls she baptizes. Americans look to 1776 and the Declaration of Independence, yet there is another anniversary a century older that tells a deeper story: 1676, the baptism of a young Mohawk maiden, Kateri Tekakwitha. Scarred by smallpox, she was transfigured at death, her face miraculously healed — a sign that the glory of the Risen Christ had touched her. Her baptism marked the beginning of a mission that outshines every temporal founding — a freedom not of nations but of the soul.
Indeed, political liberty is rightly celebrated, but it serves its highest purpose when it makes space for the liberty of faith — when 1776 allows 1676 to flourish. The measure of earthly freedom lies in how it enables the divine mission to breathe freely across the “vale of tears.”
Light Through the Glass
In 2008, Pope Benedict XVI, visiting St. Patrick’s Cathedral in Manhattan, reflected on the mystery of stained glass. From the outside, he said, such windows appear heavy and obscure; but once inside, the light transforms them into radiant stories of grace and color. So too, the Church herself — seen from without, she may seem dark and rigid; but to those within, she is radiant, alive with the Spirit’s gifts. The Cross, in this light, reveals its paradox: once an instrument of terror, now a beacon of sanctity that floods the earth with beauty.
Benedict’s meditation recalled Nathaniel Hawthorne, who understood this mystery well. His own daughter, Rose Hawthorne — known in religion as Mother Alphonsa — made her life a luminous window of mercy. Founding a congregation devoted to the care of cancer patients, she brought light to those in the deepest agony. She, too, has her place in the stained glass of St. Mary’s Cathedral, a century after the birth of the United States.
The Unbroken Mission
Rose Hawthorne died in July 1926, as America marked the sesquicentennial of its independence. From Kateri Tekakwitha, the saintly native girl baptized a century before that founding, to Rose Hawthorne, the compassionate servant a century and a half after, the line does not break. The work of the Cross continues — finished, yet forever unfolding through hearts transformed by grace.
“It is finished.”
And yet, across the centuries, in each act of love and in every life of service, it begins again.
We adore Thee, O Christ, and we praise Thee, because by Thy holy cross Thou hast redeemed the world.
- Raju Hasmukh with files from Fr Raymond J. de Souza NC Register
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