DEVOTIONAL THOUGHTS FOR MARCH 2007

+Thoughts for the Month in which we contemplate Christ’s Passion+

OUR LORD’S AGONY IN THE GARDEN OF GETHSEMANE

To some of us will come at times a taste of that horrible perplexity Our Lord had in the Garden of Olives. At times it will seem almost impossible to do what we know God wants us to do. There was a moment when Our Lord seemed to waver as to whether he would go on with His Passion (“If it be possible, take this cup from me…”) Thereafter came that complete calm which Our Lord never lost during His Passion save in that last moment of His dereliction on the Cross.

Our Lord’s agony was an anticipation of suffering: very helpful in these days, so full of subjective troubles. “My soul is sorrowful even unto death.”(Matthew 26) : a sadness of itself such as to produce death. His soul, generally in such peace and calm, was taken possession of by suffering that was enough to take his life. What was the cause? The knowledge, the anticipation of His Passion – sickness of heart, agony, fear. JESUS was mortally sad. This fact ought to be of the greatest comfort and consolation to us. To find a parallel to our sufferings in the Blessed Son of God! It is a lifelong asset of consolation that cannot be prized too high. Christ began “to be afraid” (Mark 14). By His own permission fear seized Him. It might well have seemed impossible that Our Lord should have felt fear. How He stoops for love of us! Learn from this that fearing our trouble is no sign of unfaithfulness to God.

What makes our own darkness so dense is that God does not let us have the consolations we had expected to feel in time of trial. We come away from adoring JESUS in the Tabernacle perhaps without an atom of consolation or sweetness, but He always strengthens us as the angel comforted Him in Gethsemane.

(Father Daniel Considine, S.J.)

Bishop Anthony writes: Sadness and grief so intense that they might almost bring about ones death! Only JESUS, the suffering “God Man” can suffice or make any sense of our own human condition. The other world (and false) religions cannot comprehend that God could have chosen to become a man. But this was the only way in which a loving God could “understand” the human race which He had created: by sharing our humanity! God in Christ was born to point the way to eternal life but also to share our earthly toils & troubles before dying in agony to redeem us. The agony in Gethsemane was indeed an agony of fear. Judas had already betrayed our Lord and the soldiers were on their way.

Many of us (myself recently) have been betrayed by another person, often someone we love – in that way we can, to some extent, enter into Christ’s mental suffering and sorrow on the Mount of Olives. Many people have a continual shadow hanging over them – the lonely, the bereaved, the disabled, those whose illness will not leave them. As Fr.Considine says: “Jesus in that mortal sadness showed the depths of His love for us more than at any other time.” +

Let us pray: Almighty, everliving God, by Whose ordinance Our Saviour took flesh and suffered; grant unto us this boon, that with the lesson of His endurance before us, we may be worthy to share His Resurrection.

And a passing thought:

In the end, we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends.
(Martin Luther King)
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OUR LADY OF VICTORIES, PRAY FOR OUR PEACE AND SALVATION!
SAINT JOSEPH, PROTECT US TODAY AND ALWAYS!
SACRED AND EUCHARISTIC HEART OF JESUS, HAVE MERCY UPON US!