Reflections On The Agony In The Garden

[Nihil Obstat]

[url="http://irenaeusgsaintonge.blogspot.com/2011/03/reflections-on-agony-in-garden.html"]Lenten Reflections: On the Agony in the Garden[/url]


Luke 22:

[39] And going out, he went, according to his custom, to the mount of Olives. And his disciples also followed him. [40] And when he was come to the place, he said to them: Pray, lest ye enter into temptation.


[41] And he was withdrawn away from them a stone's cast; and kneeling down, he prayed, [42] Saying: Father, if thou wilt, remove this chalice from me: but yet not my will, but thine be done. [43] And there appeared to him an angel from heaven, strengthening him. And being in an agony, he prayed the longer. [44] And his sweat became as drops of blood, trickling down upon the ground. [45] And when he rose up from prayer, and was come to his disciples, he found them sleeping for sorrow.


[46] And he said to them: Why sleep you? arise, pray, lest you enter into temptation.

Mark 14:

[32] And they came to a farm called Gethsemani. And he saith to his disciples: Sit you here, while I pray. [33] And he taketh Peter and James and John with him; and he began to fear and to be heavy. [34] And he saith to them: My soul is sorrowful even unto death; stay you here, and watch. [35] And when he was gone forward a little, he fell flat on the ground; and he prayed, that if it might be, the hour might pass from him.


[36] And he saith: Abba, Father, all things are possible to thee: remove this chalice from me; but not what I will, but what thou wilt. [37] And he cometh, and findeth them sleeping. And he saith to Peter: Simon, sleepest thou? couldst thou not watch one hour? [38] Watch ye, and pray that you enter not into temptation. The spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak. [39] And going away again, he prayed, saying the same words. [40] And when he returned, he found them again asleep, (for their eyes were heavy,) and they knew not what to answer him.


[41] And he cometh the third time, and saith to them: Sleep ye now, and take your rest. It is enough: the hour is come: behold the Son of man shall be betrayed into the hands of sinners.

Matthew 26:


[36] Then Jesus came with them into a country place which is called Gethsemani; and he said to his disciples: Sit you here, till I go yonder and pray. [37] And taking with him Peter and the two sons of Zebedee, he began to grow sorrowful and to be sad. [38] Then he saith to them: My soul is sorrowful even unto death: stay you here, and watch with me. [39] And going a little further, he fell upon his face, praying, and saying: My Father, if it be possible, let this chalice pass from me. Nevertheless not as I will, but as thou wilt. [40] And he cometh to his disciples, and findeth them asleep, and he saith to Peter: What? Could you not watch one hour with me?


[41] Watch ye, and pray that ye enter not into temptation. The spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh weak. [42] Again the second time, he went and prayed, saying: My Father, if this chalice may not pass away, but I must drink it, thy will be done. [43] And he cometh again and findeth them sleeping: for their eyes were heavy. [44] And leaving them, he went again: and he prayed the third time, saying the selfsame word. [45] Then he cometh to his disciples, and saith to them: Sleep ye now and take your rest; behold the hour is at hand, and the Son of man shall be betrayed into the hands of sinners.

[img]http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/68/Christ_in_Gethsemane.jpg[/img]

This is, in my opinion, one of the most powerful scenes of the Bible. Sin and death entered the world through Adam in the Garden of Eden, the bright and perfect garden, and now all sin will be conquered through Christ, the new Adam, in the garden of Gethsemane, which is dark and unwelcoming.
The three, Peter James and John, are seen to represent the temptation we all have towards lukewarmness. We take small steps of spiritual progress and are tempted to look at it as "good enough". It never is. We can never do enough for our God. When we look at our own efforts as good enough, we too fall asleep. Worse still, we have already been called to stay awake by our Lord. "Stay you here, and watch with me." "Pray, lest ye enter into temptation." In the face of Jesus' constant reminders to keep watch, we still fall back into lukewarm contentedness and cease to look upon the suffering of our God. We refuse to look at our own sin, which has been taken entirely into Christ, and instead we close our eyes and exist only for ourselves. Even when He comes and wakes us up, we still do not listen.
Yet, this is precisely why Jesus came. He came so that He could wake us up time after time after time. On our own, we slumber in death and darkness, but Jesus has taken that to Himself so that we, if we choose to follow Him, can wake up and keep watch.

[img]http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_pQbQHhTPH9k/TL1hKcX6dsI/AAAAAAAAAek/4ZSNo8a4dj0/s400/Vasari_The_Garden_of_Gethsemane.jpg[/img]

This suffering of Jesus in the garden is recalled again only in His Passion which is to come shortly. Christ's human nature is tormented by the suffering that He knows he must endure. He too does not want to suffer, but unlike us who avoid our trials, Jesus embraced His because it was the will of the Father.
Jesus at this point experiences the entire suffering of humanity, and takes it all into Himself. He takes all the sin and pain and betrayal and brokenness into His own soul to that He can allow us to overcome it with Him.
In Pope Benedict's new volume of Jesus of Nazareth, Holy Week: From the Entrance into Jerusalem to the Resurrection, the Holy Father goes into great depth regarding the parallels between the prayer of Jesus and the Psalms. Every word of Jesus is in fulfillment of the Old Testament, and His prayers perfect the Psalms that until that point had been only pointing towards He that would come.
Benedict says that the fear Christ experiences is "the primordial fear of created nature in the face of imminent death, and yet there is more: the particular horror felt by him who is Life itself before the abyss of the full power of destruction, evil, and enmity with God that is now unleashed upon him, that he now takes directly upon himself, or rather into himself, to the point that he is "made to be sin" (cf. 2 Cor 5:21)."
Since Jesus Christ is God, He sees and experiences the evil of our world in its entirety, through all time, at this one moment, and He experiences it not only in its entirety, but also with more perfect clarity than we can ever know, and more than we could ever experience. It is necessary that He must experience this totality of sin and death, that He may conquer it in His sacrifice.
The sins of every last member of Creation is felt individually at that very moment by our Lord. Every single failing and turning away and rejection is felt in all its depraved horror, and yet He took it willingly, knowing that He did so to redeem us. He did so out of unimaginable love for us, totally in spite of our constant failures, because we belong to Him.

Jesus' prayer is also the most critical passage for our understanding of the Hypostatic Union, that is, that "in Christ one person subsists in two natures, the Divine and the human", yet that the Son of God is one Person, not two, just as the other two Persons, the Father and the Holy Ghost, are of one substance. Jesus embodies the perfection of human will and Divine will. In us they are frequently opposed, but in Jesus they are in perfect harmony. He is untainted by sin, and therefore His orientation towards the Divine will is unhindered by the world and by evil. In Jesus is the perfected, fulfilled humanity that we achieve only in death, so as to rise again and live forever. The human element is not suppressed, or hidden, or subordinated, but is perfected and completed. God becomes man so that men might become gods (St. Athanasius). Jesus does this through radical obedience, which is the ideal towards which our human natures originally were to be ordered.
In this very short passage, Jesus shows both His true humanity through His recognition and perfection of free will, and His Divinity, when He again addresses God as Abba. The use of "Abba" displays His relationship with God, as a Son, and as consubstantial with the Father.

These passages must be seen as the final step towards the death of Christ. Here in the garden of Gethsemane, Jesus takes into Himself all sin and all death. Just as He invites Peter and James and John, He too invites us personally to stay awake and keep watch. He calls us to constant vigilance, that we might turn away from sin, and contemplate only Him.
In Him, and only in Him, may we be perfected. God became man so that men might become gods.

[img]http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2799/4121313793_81b6e688dc.jpg[/img]

All quotations are from the Douay Rheims translation of the Holy Bible. Themes are borrowed from Jesus of Nazareth: Holy Week: From the Entrance Into Jerusalem to the Resurrection by Pope Benedict XVI.

[Deb]

Pope Benedict's new book is amesome. We all need to kneel in prayer and console our Sweet Lord Jesus in His agony. AND.....spend at least one hour with Him a week in Adoration. Praise the Lord!

Edited March 20, 2011 by Deb

[sixpence]

thank you for posting this

[Nihil Obstat]

Double post.

Edited March 20, 2011 by Nihil Obstat

[Nihil Obstat]

[quote name='Deb' timestamp='1300585469' post='2221860']
Pope Benedict's new book is amesome. We all need to kneel in prayer and console our Sweet Lord Jesus in His agony. AND.....spend at least one hour with Him a week in Adoration. Praise the Lord!
[/quote]
It is a great book so far. I wish I had so much more time! So far that chapter is the only one I've read.

[Era Might]

[quote]Maybe He looked indeed
much as Rembrandt envisioned Him
in those small heads that seem in fact
portraits of more than a model.
A dark, still young, very intelligent face,
a soul-mirror gaze of deep understanding, unjudging.
That face, in extremis, would have clenched its teeth
in a grimace not shown in even the great crucifixions.
The burden of humanness (I begin to see) exacted from Him
that He taste also the humiliation of dread,
cold sweat of wanting to let the whole thing go,
like any mortal hero out of his depth,
like anyone who has taken a step too far
and wants herself back.
The painters, even the greatest, don’t show how,
in the midnight Garden,
or staggering uphill under the weight of the Cross,
He went through with even the human longing
to simply cease, to not be.
Not torture of body,
not the hideous betrayals humans commit
nor the faithless weakness of friends, and surely
not the anticipation of death (not then, in agony’s grip)
was Incarnation’s heaviest weight,
but this sickened desire to renege,
to step back from what He, Who was God,
had promised Himself, and had entered
time and flesh to enact.
Sublime acceptance, to be absolute, had to have welled
up from those depths where purpose
drifted for mortal moments.

"Salvator Mundi: Via Crucis" by Denise Levertov[/quote]

[CatherineM]

This is above my head right now.

[Livin_the_MASS]

I need to get that book! amesome stuff thanks for posting it!

[Nihil Obstat]

[quote name='Livin_the_MASS' timestamp='1300676943' post='2222017']
I need to get that book! amesome stuff thanks for posting it!
[/quote]
Most of that is my own, or my reflections based on the book.

[sixpence]

wow...

@ Denise Levertov

Edited March 21, 2011 by sixpence

[Nihil Obstat]

Whozzat?

[Seven77]

Thanks for sharing. Will be re-reading it. The Agony in the Garden, the opposite of the Transfiguration, contains the mystery of Lent. Jesus suffers for every person past, present, future---and we can enter into it and console him, as the Saints did and all future generations of Christians will.