~Matthew 26: 38
Human nature shrinks from suffering and dreads it, but
not one of the sons of men was ever so sensitive as Our Lord, Jesus Christ, or
had sufferings to endure in any way comparable to His. St. Ignatius teaches us
in contemplation to study not only the outward person, but also the inward
thoughts; we are allowed to try in our poor way to find out, if we can, what
were the chief objects that are presented to Our Lord’s soul which awakened
His fear, sadness, and heaviness of heart.
Spiritual writers answer: (1) Fear is awakened by His
oncoming Passion; (2) Oppression and most weary tediousness is awakened
by the sight of all the opposition He shall encounter from men and devils in
His work of redeeming those He loves so much; (3) Sorrow unto death is
caused by the sign of sin: sin past, sin present,
and sin to come; the offense, the displeasure, the dishonor, the
ingratitude, the malice, the treason and treachery all heaped upon Him
by sin.
During the Agony in the Garden, Our Lord anticipated all the
coming agony of His Passion. He allowed His human
soul to feel in all its intensity each detail of the unspeakable suffering that
was now close at hand. All His life, the Passion was distinctly present to Him
but, in the Garden, it was allowed to take possession of His soul. Now the fear
was mortal.
When darkness invades our own souls, we
should remember that none is like the deep, black darkness that spread over the
Sacred Soul of Jesus. Where should we have gone in our hours of sorrow and
agony and weakness had there been no Gethsemane? How generous is Christ’s love
for us!
“All that I can do I will do for them” was His
motto through life. When the hour had come, He did not what benefited Him but
what would help us most: To be like us in all things, except sin, He would meet
suffering and death. To be like us in all things, this was His rule from first
to last: that having shown Himself like us, He might win us
to be like Him, ready to say in the hour of trial, “Father, if thou
wilt, remove this chalice from Me; but yet not My will, but Thine be done.”
(Luke 22: 42)
“My soul is sorrowful unto death,” Our
Lord so piteously mourned. And what was the relief? It was prayer, just
as He had admonished the Apostles: “Watch ye, and pray that ye enter not into
temptation. The spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh weak.” (Matthew 26:41)
Our Lord knew that in all desolation and distress, the best
and only plan is to throw ourselves upon the almighty and all-tender Mercy
of God. There is no imperfection in asking to be delivered from something we
can hardly endure, otherwise Christ would not have asked to be delivered from
His Chalice of Suffering. Here is the impeccable, all-holy human will swaying
in the tempest, but still ever clinging to the Divine.
In our darkest hours, we, too, can repeat those words with
Jesus, for He taught us by His word and His example. Yet we must
remember the act of resignation which leaves everything in the hands of
God: “Not as I will, but as Thou wilt.”
The Passion of Christ teaches us what real love means. Once
more, we are taught the lesson that “Love is proven by deeds.”
The secret of Our Lord’s desire to suffer was His Love…but it
was not the suffering itself for which Christ longed. No, it was the result
of that suffering - for that joy that was set before Him – for which He endured
the Cross.
Like Him, when we suffer, we
suffer for a reason but, unlike Him, we may not know why. Still, like
the Angel who comforted Christ in the Garden of Gethsemane, He comforts us:
“So also you now indeed have sorrow; but I will see you again, and your
heart shall rejoice; and your joy no man shall take from you.” (John 16: 22)
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