Editorial note: This article is a transcript of a reflection given by Gio Benitez during a Good Friday service of the “Seven Last Words of Christ,” at the Church of St. Paul the Apostle in New York City. The transcript with the corresponding live-stream video of the service have been published here with permission from the Church of St. Paul the Apostle.
“After this, aware that everything was now finished, in order that the scripture might be fulfilled, Jesus said, “I thirst.” There was a vessel filled with common wine. So they put a sponge soaked in wine on a sprig of hyssop and put it up to his mouth.” (cf. John 19:28-30)
You know, joining you here today wasn’t on the 2026 bingo card, and neither was reciting these words from John’s Gospel, words spoken by Jesus on the cross in the final moments of his crucifixion. And it struck me as I read this that I spent so much of my life studying religion and spirituality from an intellectual perspective—really trying to make the brain make sense of it all. But today, I’m putting the heart to work, and I’m telling you how I feel.
The past year was a really big one for me. I turned 40, and just a week later, I received the sacrament of confirmation right here at the Church of St. Paul the Apostle. It was something I never expected to do, and yet, it was something I was preparing for my entire life.
Before I walked through these doors, I felt like I had been thirsty for three decades, starting when I was ten years old. Thirsty for understanding another reality that, for some reason, is so invisible to our eyes. You see, when I was ten, I lost for the first time—one of the greatest loves of my life, my abuela Lidia, my grandmother. We as Catholics, we love a matriarch, all around us the Blessed Mother is right here in the church. And she was our matriarch. It was an unexpected passing, but that night I knew that she was gone before I even woke up the morning of her death. She came to me in a dream, as if to prepare me for the hardest news that was about to be confirmed just moments later when my mom woke up to an early morning phone call.
[Tears] are such a reflection of how lucky we are to have the kind of love that pierces our soul, but if you shed enough of them, you can be left dehydrated.
You know, tears are a funny thing. They are such a reflection of how lucky we are to have the kind of love that pierces our soul, but if you shed enough of them, you can be left dehydrated. You can be left thirsty. At the funeral, I remember her hands holding a rosary, and I grabbed her hand, tears rolling down my little ten-year-old face. It was just us, she looked so beautiful and so peaceful.
And then, something happened. As I was looking at her, I saw a single tear drop fall from her right eye. Of course, immediately, I went over to the adults and I said, “we’re making a big mistake. She’s alive.”But the funeral director would tell me sometimes these things happen, that the body builds up fluids. I didn’t buy it, not because I thought that her body was still functioning, but because I knew without a doubt that she was still alive. I just couldn’t see her with these human eyes. At that moment, at ten years old, would trigger an extraordinary exploration for the next 30 years of my life.
As a teenager, I started going to church with my Mom, and I could feel the presence of God with the same conviction that I felt knowing my abuela was somewhere behind this veil of mystery. But I also felt the presence of a deep-seated secret. I knew I was gay and I prayed hard for God to change me. At fifteen, I was baptized and I hoped that the water of baptism would just wash over me like some magic potion and change who I am—of course it didn’t. And now, more questions were added to my long list of others and I stopped going to church.
Still, I was so thirsty to understand: Does God truly love me? Does he love me as I am? Does he love me as he created me?
Still, I was so thirsty to understand: Does God truly love me? Does he love me as I am? Does he love me as he created me?
I went on to study “Religious Studies” in college, focusing on Comparative Religion. That’s where you take ancient stories of many of the world’s religions and you compare them to see, for example, if biblical narratives may have been borrowed from older traditions. I was burying myself in these studies, and I was searching for proof of God. But maybe I was just searching for proof of God’s love.
I would go on a journey taking several courses on different meditation techniques, and reading so many self-help books. All of which are wonderful and can be extremely helpful, but none of it quenched my thirst.
There’s a gorgeous Christian song called “Via Dolorosa.” Around this time every year, it would play on the radio while I was driving to school in my 2000 Honda Civic.
And it opens with these lyrics:
Down the Via Dolorosa in Jerusalem that day
The soldiers tried to clear the narrow street
But the crowd pressed in to see
The man condemned to die on Calvary
The Passion of Jesus was made real and present in song. I would inexplicably break out into tears every time I heard it.
Even though I wasn’t going to church, I never stopped studying. I kept diving deep into the Bible, reading ancient documents and listening to sacred music. When I met my husband and we started going on trips, I would take him to every Catholic Church I could find. That warm smell of frankincense breathed new life into me, the beauty of the architecture— oh it just made me feel like I was experiencing heaven on Earth. And most importantly, I felt the real and divine presence of God—and all who have joined him in eternity—like my abuela Lidia and my abuela Emilia who taught me how to pray El Padre Nuestro, the Our Father. It turns out nothing was allowing my heart to deny what that ten-year-old knew to be real.
All around this church, at any given time, you’ll find those candles flickering. They are all, in a sense, living prayers, but I wonder if some of us light those candles to make the invisible become visible. Fire and water may be opposites, but it’s not lost on me that each little dancing flame is somehow quenching our spiritual thirst.
Just weeks ago, we were celebrating my husband’s birthday in Las Vegas and we were able to see the “Wizard of Oz” at the immersive theater, the Sphere. And I was so moved when I heard Dorothy say to Glinda: “If I ever go looking for my heart’s desire again, I won’t look any further than my own backyard. Because if it isn’t there, I never really lost it to begin with.”
As that water from the baptismal font washed over me anew, this time, this time it was quenching my thirst with God’s merciful love.
After a fateful meeting with our friend, Father James Martin, and emails with our pastor Father Eric Andrews, I walked through these doors last May, and I was returning home like the Prodigal Son, after having spent so much time trying to find myself anywhere else but here.
At that first Sunday Mass, I finally heard the answer to my life-long question: Yes, God loves me deeply, and he loves me exactly as I am. I felt like I was surrounded by a cloud of witnesses—visible and invisible—feeling the loving embrace of the risen Christ.
Since Jesus is both fully human and fully divine, perhaps by saying “I thirst,” he was trying to remind us of his human nature. Or perhaps he was simply expressing a deep physical need on the cross, as anyone would do. But just like every other word Jesus spoke, I tend to think that he was asking us to dig deeper, to teach us a lesson.
Since that first Mass was on the Sixth Sunday of Easter, Father Eric performed the rite of sprinkling holy water on the congregation. I remember closing my eyes and thinking about the shame I attached to that water twenty five years earlier.
Now as that water from the baptismal font washed over me anew, this time, this time it was quenching my thirst with God’s merciful love.
