Simple Thoughts on the Rosary: Sorrowful Mysteries: The Agony in the Garden
We may think of our Lord as halting between two ways; in a hesitation born of love, as to which of two courses would be most advantageous to us. He had resolved to carry our sorrows, and therefore to know by His own experience the anguish of dejection and fear. But would it be safe to let us see Him in His abasement? Would it scandalize us and shake our faith? That imploring cry: “Father, let this chalice pass from Me,” would it make us doubt for an instant His readiness to die for us?
On the other hand, the complete unveiling to us of His human Heart in its weakness and distress, its craving for sympathy, its turning in the hour of trial to those it loved—this would uphold us in our day of sorrow. What would be best for us? What would help us most? Not a thought for Himself or of His own humiliation; absolutely self-forgetting: having loved His own who were in the world, He loved them to the end.
He would risk, then, the trial to their faith. They must have the comfort and encouragement of His companionship in hours of weariness and gloom; they must see Him quailing before the Cross; praying to be spared; creeping to His friends for sympathy and for the protection of their presence in His loneliness and terror. They must see Him turning from the Angel who had never suffered to the human hearts that were like His own. It would involve humiliation such as He had not stooped to as yet. What of that? The law of the Incarnation before all else—like to us in all things excepting sin.
And so He “humbled Himself to us” as the Church says (Collect for Palm Sunday). Is she, too, fearful lest from His prayer in the Garden we should doubt His readiness to suffer and die for us? Any way, she ends every hour of her office in Holy Week with that most touching prayer:
“Look down we beseech Thee, O Lord, upon this Thy family, for which our Lord Jesus Christ hesitated not to be betrayed into the hands of sinners and to suffer the torment of the Cross.”
“Hesitated not;” never entered into a moment’s deliberation about; took it as a matter of course—and this for me!
Three days before the Thursday when He was to be sorrowful even unto death, a foretaste of His midnight agony was given Him. It was Palm Sunday.
The triumphal procession was over. The Hosannas had ceased. He was healing in the Temple when Peter and Andrew came to tell Him certain Gentiles had come to them with the petition: “We would see Jesus.”
How was it that the mention of the Gentiles suggested the Passion? In anguish of spirit He cried out: “Now is My soul troubled. And what shall I say? Father, save Me from this hour. But for this cause I came unto this hour. Father, glorify Thy name.” Here in the Temple Courts as presently in Gethsemane He lets us see the strife—to speak our human language—between the human Will that shrank like ours from torture and disgrace, and the Divine Will that overruled the human and brought it into conformity with Itself.
“Now is My soul troubled” foreseeing the depths of anguish into which it must descend; beholding torments, betrayal, desertion, dereliction, death.
“What shall I say?”—to Him to whom all things are possible, who can deliver Me from all the evil that threatens Me?
“Father, save Me!”—the cry of a child. Save Me for the love Thou bearest Me, for the trust I place in Thee.
“From this hour”—foreseen so long, accepted so fully, yet now that it is at hand beheld with such unspeakable dread.
Here is the voice of the Son of Man, of Him who is like us in all things excepting sin. Here is the human Will swaying in the tempest, yet clinging ever to the Divine.
“But for this cause I came unto this hour”—that I might hallow Thy Name, and by My submission prove Myself Thy Son.
“Father, glorify Thy Name”—even at My cost, even in the sacrifice of all that as man is dear and precious to Me. In My abasement, in My shame, in the triumph of My enemies, in the desolation of My friends, in the extremity of My pains, in the hiding of Thy face, O My Father, a darkness worse than death; by every drop of My blood, by every throb of agony; as in each moment of My life, so in the bitterness of death, Father, glorify Thy Name!
This is our Elder Brother, He who said to us on the eve of His Passion: “I have given you an example that as I have done so you do also.” How much of His oblation can we make our own? How deep can we drink of His chalice? He will not ask us to do more than taste what He drained to the dregs. He has proved that He loves us dearly. He has shown us we may trust Him. Shall we not abandon ourselves to Him, and let Him who knows us through and through do with us what He wills!
The chalice which my Father hath given Me shall I not drink it.—John xviii.
It is always my Father’s wisdom and love that prepares my chalice, as the physician mingles the draught for his little sick child.
It is always my Father’s hand that holds the chalice to my lips. Not this person or that forces it on me, though in the gloom it seems to be so: always, always, it is the chalice that my Father hath given me. It is always my Father’s voice that I hear inviting and encouraging me: “Can you drink of the chalice of which I have drunk?” “Take all that shall be brought upon thee, and in thy sorrow endure, and in thy humiliation keep patience” (Ecclus. 2). “What I do thou knowest not now, but thou shalt know hereafter” (John 13). Seek not the things that are too high for thee, and search not into things above thy ability’... for it is not necessary for thee to see with thy eyes those things that are hid (Ecclus. 3). “Blessed are they that have not seen and have believed” (John 20).
I will be one of these blessed ones. I will take the chalice from my Father’s hand. I will trust in His wisdom and love that have prepared it for me. I will listen to His tender words as He gives me to drink. And in my heart and on my lips shall be those of His well-beloved Son: “Yea, Father, for so hath it seemed good in Thy sight” (Matth. 11). “Not my will but Thine be done” (Luke 22). It shall not be a reproach to me: “They grieved the Holy One, they remembered not His hand. They loved Him with their mouth, but their heart was not right with Him, nor were they counted faithful” (Ps. 77). But “I will take the chalice of salvation and call upon the name of the Lord” (Ps. 115), “and humbly wait for His consolation” (Judith 8).
Ill.
(1) Believe God and He will recover thee (Ecclus. 2).
(2) Wait on God with patience, join thyself to God and endure (Id.).
(3) Take all that shall be brought upon thee; and in thy sorrow endure, and in thy humiliation keep patience (Id.).
(4) For He woundeth and cureth; He striketh and His hands shall heal; refuse not therefore the chastising of the Lord (Job 5).
(5) It is the Lord, let Him do what is good in His sight (I. Kings 8).
If it be not He, who is it, then? (Job 9).
(6) Shall not my soul be subject to God? (Ps. 61).
I will bear the wrath of the Lord because I have sinned against Him (Micheas 7).
(7) I am ready, let Him do what is good before Him (II. Kings 15).
(8) Do with me, O Lord, according to Thy Will (Tobias 3).
(9) Do all that seemeth good in Thy eyes (I. Kings 14).
(10) Teach me to do Thy Will, for Thou art my God (Ps. 142).