THE MYSTERY OF JESUS' AGONY IN THE GARDEN OF GETHSEMANE

The agony and anguish of Jesus in his prayer in the garden and his sublime resignation to the will of the Father provide further nourishment to enable the devout person to grow in the life of Jesus which he/she desires to possess.

Good Jesus,
we who by baptism
are rooted in your death,
what profit should we not draw
from your sacred passion.

In this sacred mystery
we have
not only the examples
of all the sublime virtues
but also the graces
to help us practise them.

At the beginning of your Last Supper,
you revealed an intense desire
to suffer and die for us.

"I have desired," you said,
"with desire"...
(but to what excess of ardour this desire went)
"to eat this pasch with you."

Oh, how this ardour
urges me on
until the moment
when I consume it.

In contemplation of this loving desire
and in order to acknowledge
its benefits,
should I not ardently desire
to suffer and die for you?

But what do I not learn
from a consideration
of your prayer in the Garden of Olives.

There
you surrendered
your sacred humanity
to terrors
so great in the face of cruel torments
it was to endure,
that it was reduced to agony
and to shedding
a copious sweat of blood.
Oh,
what wonderful lessons I learn
from this mystery.

Grant, good Jesus,
that I profit from them,
that I learn through them
to have recourse to God
in perfect confidence
in my greatest sorrows,
that I learn through them
courageously
to surrender
to all God's plans,
and in my sorrows
always to say"

"My dear Father,
may your will, not mine, be done."

May your wishes
be fulfilled,
not mine.
May everything happen
according to your will.

It is here especially
that I learn to pray well.

O good Jesus,
what a good example of perfect prayer
you give me.

You withdrew
to a place of solitude.
You went apart
from all your apostles,
even from the three
you had chosen
to witness
your bloody agony.

You humbled yourself
with deep reverence
in the presence of your Father.
You made your prayer to Him
prostrate,
face on the ground,
reduced to agony
under the genuine fear
to which you surrendered
your humanity.

You prolonged
and renewed your prayer
with even greater fervour.
And through the intensity
and deep reverence
of your request,
you merited to be heard.

Withdrawing from your prayer
and filled with a holy courage
and eagerness,
you went forward
to meet the suffering
that had filled you with fear
to the point
of sweating blood.

That was the manner of your prayer.

That was its fruit.

When will my prayer
have the dispositions and perfections
of yours.
O Jesus,
pray through me and with me.
Grant that I may draw from my prayer
such fruits as you willed
to draw from your own."

(Writings of Jean-Pierre Médaille, SJ, pp. 122-123)