Reflections and affections on the passion of Jesus Christ - 13

I. Behold how our most loving Saviour, having come to the Garden of Gethsemani, did of His own accord make a beginning of His bitter Passion by giving full liberty to the passions of fear, of weariness, and of sorrow to come and afflict Him with all their torments: He began to fear, and to be heavy, to grow sorrowful, and to be sad. (Mark xiv., Matt. xxvi.). He began, then, first to feel a great fear of death, and of the sufferings He would soon have to endure. He began to fear. But how? Was it not He Himself Who had offered Himself spontaneously to endure all these torments? He was offered because he willed it. Was it not He Who had so much desired this hour of His Passion, and Who had said shortly before: With desire have I desired to eat this pasch with you? And yet, how is it that He was seized with such a fear of death, that He even prayed His Father to deliver Him from it: My Father, if it be possible, let this chalice pass from me (Matt. xxvi. 39)? The Venerable Bede answers this: "Jesus Christ prays that the chalice may pass from Him, in order to show that He was truly Man." He, our loving Saviour, chose indeed to die for us in order by His death to prove to us the love He bore us; also in order that men might not suppose that He had assumed a fantastic body (as some heretics have blasphemously asserted), or that in virtue of His Divinity, He had died without suffering any pain, He therefore made this prayer to His heavenly Father, not indeed with a view of being heard, but to give us to understand that He died as man, and afflicted with a great fear of death and of the sufferings which should accompany His death. O most amiable Jesus, Thou wouldst, then, take upon Thee our fearfulness in order to give us Thy courage in suffering the trials of this life. Oh, be Thou for ever blessed for Thy great mercy and love! Oh, may all our hearts love Thee as much as Thou desirest, and as much as Thou deservest!

II. He began to be heavy. He began to feel a great weariness on account of the torments that were prepared for Him. When one is weary, even pleasures are painful. Oh, what anguish united to this weariness must Jesus Christ have felt at the horrible representation which then came before His mind, of all the torments, both exterior and interior, which, during the short remainder of His life, were so cruelly to afflict His body and His blessed Soul! Then did all the sufferings He was to endure pass distinctly before His eyes, as well as all the insults He should endure from the Jews and from the Romans; all the injustice of which the judges of His cause would be guilty towards Him; and, above all, He had before Him the vision of that death of desolation which He should have to endure, forsaken by all, by men and by God, in the midst of a sea of sufferings and contempt. And this it was that caused Him such heavy grief that He was obliged to pray for consolation to His Eternal Father. O my Jesus, I compassionate Thee, I thank Thee, and I love Thee.

And there appeared to him an angel... strengthening him. (Luke xxii. 43). Strength came; but, says the Venerable Bede, this rather increased than lightened His sufferings: "Strength did not diminish, but increased His sorrow." Yes, for the Angel strengthened Him that He might suffer still more for the love of men, and the glory of His Father. Oh, what sufferings did not this first combat bring Thee, my beloved Lord! During the progress of Thy Passion, the scourges, the thorns, the nails, came one after the other to torment Thee. But in the Garden all the sufferings of Thy whole Passion assaulted Thee altogether and tormented Thee. And Thou didst accept all for my sake and my good. O my God, how much I regret not having loved Thee in times past, and having preferred my own accursed pleasures to Thy will. I detest them now above every evil, and repent of them with my whole heart. O my Jesus, forgive me.