The 7 Last Words and the Nicene Creed: ‘Father, Into Your Hands I Commend My Spirit’

National Catholic Register, 18 April 2025

The sixth word Christ utters from the cross brings us to the death of the Lord Jesus, crucified for our sake.

“It was now about the sixth hour, and there was darkness over the whole land until the ninth hour, while the sun’s light failed; and the curtain of the temple was torn in two. Then Jesus, crying with a loud voice, said, ‘Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit!’ And having said this, he breathed his last. Now when the centurion saw what had taken place, he praised God, and said, ‘Certainly this man was innocent!’ And all the multitudes who assembled to see the sight, when they saw what had taken place, returned home beating their breasts” (Luke 23:44-48).

The sixth word from the cross brings us to the death of the Lord Jesus, crucified for our sake. 

In the fifth word, we saw how everything unfolds, as the Nicene Creed professes, “in accordance with the scriptures.” The sixth word — “Father, into your hands I commend my spirit” — returns us to the Scriptures again, this time to Psalm 31:5. The fourth word is from Psalm 22, which is the Responsorial Psalm for Palm Sunday each year. Psalm 31, our sixth word, is the Responsorial Psalm for Good Friday each year. The Passion fulfills the vision of Psalm 31, trust in God amid terror: 

“I am the scorn of all my adversaries,
    a horror to my neighbors,
an object of dread to my acquaintances;
    those who see me in the street flee from me.
I have passed out of mind like one who is dead;
    I have become like a broken vessel.
Yea, I hear the whispering of many —
    terror on every side! —
as they scheme together against me,
    as they plot to take my life.

But I trust in thee, O Lord,
    I say, ‘Thou art my God’” (Psalm 31:11-14).

St. John Paul the Great spoke of Auschwitz as the “Golgotha of the modern world” in 1979. When he visited Yad Vashem, the Holocaust memorial in Jerusalem in 2000, he began his profoundly moving address with those lines from Psalm 31: “terror on every side … as they scheme together against me, as they plot to take my life.”

There are two references in the Nicene Creed to the Scriptures. The first refers to the passion, death and resurrection of the Lord Jesus. He rose again on the third day in accordance with the scriptures. Later, regarding the Holy Spirit, we say the he “has spoken through the prophets.”

Jesus speaks of his Spirit in the sixth word. The Nicene Creed devotes a section to the Holy Spirit, just as it previously speaks of the Father and the Son.

“I believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord, the giver of life, who proceeds from the Father and the Son, who with the Father and the Son is adored and glorified, who has spoken through the prophets.”

The creed that was formulated at the Council of Nicaea in 325 — the reason for our anniversary celebrations this year — included a brief reference to the Holy Spirit: “I believe in the Holy Spirit.” So too the Apostles’ Creed, which only says, “I believe in the Holy Spirit.” Later, at the Council of Constantinople in 381, the longer reference to the Holy Spirit was added. 

When Jesus speaks of “my spirit,” he could be speaking in a generic sense of the soul, of his divine nature or his human soul. Or he could be speaking of the Holy Spirit, the Spirit which is a divine Person, God like he is God, like the Father is God. Both meanings could be intended.

The sixth word reminds us that Jesus remains an active agent, engaging his will, even on the cross. Crucifixion is largely passive. There is very little that one can do after being nailed to a cross. It does remain possible to choose, as Jesus chose on the cross, how those sufferings will be received, embraced and lived out.

In our English translation of the Nicene Creed, God is, for the most part, active. The verbs are in the active tense. He is the maker of heaven and earth. Jesus came down from heaven, and he ascends to the heavens, to come again in glory to judge the living and the dead. In the sixth word, Jesus decides the time to commend his Spirit to the Father. He fulfills the mission to the end.

There is, in reference to the Passion — literally so — a passive dimension. He was crucified. He suffered death and was buried.

Jesus allows things to happen to him. But as the Passion ends, he acts again. It is Jesus who commends his Spirit.

The sixth word reminds us that God is always the principal actor. He takes the initiative. He acts first. We might understandably think that we go in search of God. That is how we experience it. But it is really God who goes in search of us. We may point to this moment or that moment when it seemed to us that we found God; it was actually him finding us. 

That original version of the creed at Nicaea in 325 — I believe in the Holy Spirit — reflects a tendency in the Christian life to give less attention to the Holy Spirit. Sometimes he is called “the forgotten Person” of the Holy Trinity. We find it easy to pray to the Father; to pray to the Son, the Lord Jesus. It seems more difficult for us to pray to the Holy Spirit. Partly that is because the Holy Spirit’s work is hidden until after the Ascension. Jesus tells his apostles during Holy Week the Spirit will come after his departure. 

When the Holy Spirit comes, he inspires them, breathes new life into them. The age of the Church begins, and the Scriptures are written, the Gospels and the New Testament letters. We might say that the work of Jesus, his mission in the world, was limited to some 33 years. The Spirit’s work continues for much longer. 

For God, who is omnipotent and eternal, these measurements, these comparisons, do not mean so much, but it is helpful for us to realize that the Holy Spirit is the one who carries on the work that the Father sent the Son into the world to do.

The creed suggests something of a new age at hand. After the Ascension, the Holy Spirit comes, and the creed speaks of the work of the Church, of the baptism of all the nations, of the forgiveness of sins. This ongoing, sanctifying mission is the work of the Spirit.

It begins on the cross. St. John records the lancing of the side of Jesus and the blood and the water that flows out (John 19:34). In the sixth word, the Lord Jesus commends himself to the Father. His words are directed upward — his life, his spirit, towards the heavens. Then, with the lancing of his side, that same life, that Spirit, analogously we might say, is poured downwards, out into the world, so that it might reach those at the foot of the cross, and from them, to all places and nations and peoples and ages. Even unto us. 

The Nicene Creed gives to the Holy Spirit quite a beautiful title, “Lord and giver of life.”

“Lord” means God. The creed clarifies that the Holy Spirit is not lesser in any way to the Father and the Son. With the Father and the Son, He is adored and glorified. Even if we neglect the Holy Spirit in our personal prayer, we do formally recognize him because we begin and end “in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit.” Even if we never think about him explicitly, the Holy Spirit is formally present at the beginning and at the end. 

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