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Angel of Agony |
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Following the Lord's Supper, Jesus bids his disciples go with him to the Garden of Olives to pray and, taking Peter, James, and John, enters further into the Garden and into his suffering. Jesuit James Monaghan writes: "From this point onward the Divinity would seem to conceal Itself, abandon His human nature to frailty and suffering.... He thus experiences the feelings of one about to undergo a serious ordeal.... The shadow of it lies upon Him in advance; and through physical fear and heaviness, 'He began to grow sorrowful and to be sad.'"
In the faint shadows of the moon the disciples hear the moans of their Master, "My soul is sorrowful even unto death. Stay here and watch with me." Jesus prepared them for this trial of their faith by the vision of His glory on Mount Tabor. Yet they lie huddled asleep, oblivious to the weight of pain and abandonment and bitter disappointment. The Master staggers a third time into the lonely shadows betrayed and in inexpressible anguish. An angel appears to strengthen him - here is a moment of mystical hope - and Jesus surrenders to his sacrificial death: "not my will but yours be done."
In Jesus' sorrow and betrayal, his disappointment and anguish, he suffers for us and he suffers with us. May we beg for the grace to condole with Him and to suffer patiently and generously. Many of us have Gethsemane days when we too feel immense weight of serious ordeals. Physical fear and heaviness overcome us. Our family and friends seem oblivious. Yet there is an angel nearby, hovering, strengthening, keeping watch, this angel of mystical hope.
Monaghan continues, "Yet the death of Jesus would be without meaning to us, and our emotional sympathy for Him without worth, unless through prayer and penance and enlightening grace we come to realize that He is in truth eternal God....In the measure in which this truth takes possession of us, will Jesus Christ Crucified become a practical element in our lives.... It will make the image of the Crucified a living God with arms outstretched to welcome us into eternity, as with our last breath we commit our spirit into His hands."
*Agony in the Garden: Mt. 26:30-46; Mk. 14:32-42; Lk. 22:39-46.
**Monaghan, James, Teach Me Thy Paths. Chicago, Loyola, 1936. 311-313.
--by Jan |
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Most Fully Alive - by Bill
Overwhelmed with distress and anguish, Jesus told the disciples, "My heart is ready to break with grief." He then threw himself down on the ground and prayed, "My Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass me by" (Matt. 26:37-39 REB).
Frederick Buechner comments: "One thinks of the stirring and noble way others have met their deaths - the equanimity of Socrates as he raised the hemlock to his lips, the exaltation of Joan as they bound her to the stake, Nathan Hale's 'I only regret that I have but one life to lose for my country.' Jesus sounds like none of them. Maybe it is because it is to the ones who are most fully alive that death comes most unbearably."[1]
"Watch and pray, that ye enter not into temptation." That's what Jesus says to the disciples in Matt. 26:41, at least in the familiar words of the King James Version. Many modern translations have it as "Stay awake and pray...." The Common English Bible says, "Stay alert ...."
Stay alert. I wonder if what Jesus meant was, "Be most fully alive." Instead of numbing ourselves with drugs or alcohol or video games, Jesus invites us to be fully present and fully alive. Open both to distress and to joy, we become most fully human - and we become most like our savior.
[1] The Faces of Jesus (Harper, 1989), 144-146.
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