The Agony in The Garden
The Lord then rose to
depart from the hall of the miraculous feast and also most
holy Mary left her retreat in order to meet Him on the way.
At this face to face meeting of the Prince of eternity and
of the queen, a sword of sorrow pierced the heart of Son
and Mother, inflicting a pang of grief beyond all human and
angelic thought. The sorrowful Mother threw Herself at
the feet of Jesus, adoring Him as her true God and
Redeemer. The Lord, looking upon Her with a majesty Divine
and at the same time with the overflowing love of a Son,
spoke to Her only these words: "My Mother, I shall be with
thee in tribulation; let Us accomplish the Will of the
eternal Father and the salvation of men." The great Queen
offered Herself as a sacrifice with her whole heart and
asked his blessing. Having received this She returned to
her retirement, where, by a special favor of the Lord, she
was able to see all that passed in connection with her
Divine Son. Thus She was enabled to accompany Him and
co-operate with Him in his activity as far as devolved upon
Her.
Our
Redeemer and Master left the house of the Cenacle with all
the men, who had been present at the celebration of the
mysterious supper; and soon many of them dispersed in the
different streets in order to attend to their own affairs.
Followed by his twelve Apostles, the Lord directed his
steps toward mount Olivet outside and close to the eastern
walls of Jerusalem. Judas, alert in his treacherous
solicitude for the betrayal of his Divine Master,
conjectured that Jesus intended to pass the night in prayer
as was his custom. This appeared to him a most opportune
occasion for delivering his Master into the hands of the
scribes and pharisees. Driven on in the stormy hurricane of
thoughts raised by his bad conscience, he arrived
breathless at the house of the high priests. On the way it
happened, that Lucifer, perceiving the haste of Judas in
procuring the death of Jesus Christ, and, fearing that
after all Jesus might be the true Messias, came toward him
in the shape of a very wicked man, a friend of Judas
acquainted with the intended betrayal. In this shape
Lucifer could speak to Judas without being recognized. He
tried to persuade him that this project of selling his
Master did at first seem advisable on account of the wicked
deeds attributed to Jesus; but that, having considered the
matter, he did not now deem it advisable to deliver him
over to the priests and pharisees; for Jesus was ot so bad
as Judas might imagine; nor did he deserve death. Here
Lucifer feared that his power and hold over the human race
might now be destroyed by this possible
Godman.
In
the meanwhile our Divine Lord with the eleven Apostles was
engaged in the work of our salvation and the salvation of
those who were scheming his death. Our Savior pursued his
way across the torrent of Cedon (John 18,1) to mount Olivet
and entered the garden of Gethsemani. Then He said to all
the Apostles: "Wait for Me, and seat yourselves hear while
I go a short distance from here to pray (Matth. 26,36); do
you also pray, in order that you may not enter into
temptation" (Luke 22,40). Then the Master of life, leaving
the band of eight Apostles at that place and taking with
Him saint Peter, saint John, and saint James, retired to
another place, where they could neither be seen nor heard
by the rest (Mark 14,33).
Being with the three
Apostles He raised his eyes up to the eternal Father
confessing and praising Him as was his custom; while
interiorly He prayed in fulfillment of the prophecy of
Zacharias, permitting death to approach the most innocent
of men and commanding the sword of divine justice to be
unsheathed over the Shepherd and descend upon the Godman
with all its deathly force. In this prayer Christ our Lord
offered Himself anew to the eternal Father in satisfaction
of his justice for the rescue of the human race; and He
gave consent, that all the torments of his Passion and
Death be let loose over that part of his human being, which
was capable of suffering. From that moment He suspended and
restrained whatever consolation or relief would otherwise
overflow from the impassable to the passable part of his
being, so that his passion and sufferings might reach the
highest degree possible. The eternal Father granted these
petitions and approved this total sacrifice of the sacred
humanity.This prayer was as it were
the floodgate through which the rivers of his suffering
were to find entrance like the resistless onslaught of the
ocean. And immediately He began to be sorrrowful and feel
the anguish of his soul and therefore said to the Apostles:
"My soul is sorrowful unto death" (Mark 14,34).
He threw himself with
his Divine face upon the ground and prayed to the eternal
Father: "Father, if it is possible, let this chalice pass
from Me" (Matth. 24,38). The agony of Christ our Savior
grew in proportion to the greatness of his charity and the
certainty of his knowledge, that men would persist in
neglecting to profit by his Passion and Death (Luke 22,44).
His agony increased to such an extent, that great drops of
bloody sweat were pressed from Him, which flowed to the
very earth. Although this prayer was uttered subject to a
condition and failed in regard to the reprobate who fell
under this condition; yet He gained thereby a greater
abundance and secured a greater frequency of favors for
mortals. Through it the blessings were multiplied for those
who placed no obstacles before it. The fruits of the
redemption were applied to the saints and to the just more
abundantly, and many gifts and graces, of which the
reprobates made themselves unworthy, were diverted to the
elect. The human will of Christ, coforming itself to that
of the Divinity, then accepted suffering for each
respectively: for the reprobate, as sufficient to procure
them the necessary help, if they would make use of its
merits, and for the predestined, as an efficacious means,
of which they would avail themselves to secure their
salvation by co-operating with grace. Thus was set in
order, and as it were realized, the salvation of the
mystical body of his holy Church, of which Christ the Lord
was the Creator and Head.
As a ratification of this
divine decree, while yet our Master was in his agony, the
eternal Father for the third time sent the archangel
Michael to the earth in order to comfort Him by a sensible
message and confirmation of what He already knew by the
infused science of his most holy soul; for the angel could
not tell our Lord anything He did not know, nor could he
produce any additional effect on his interior consciousness
for this purpose.
Let us now
return to the
Cenacle, where the Queen of heaven had retired with the
holy women of Her company. From Her retreat, by divine
enlightenment, She saw most clearly all the mysteries and
doings of her most holy Son in the garden. At the moment
when the Savior seperated Himself with the three Apostles
Peter, John and James, the heavenly Queen seperated Herself
from the other women and went into another room. She begged
the eternal Father to suspend in Her all human alleviation
and comfort, both in the sensitive and in the spiritual
part of her being, so that nothing might hinder Her from
suffering to the highest degree in union with her divine
Son. She prayed that She might be permitted to feel and
participate in her virginal body all the pains of the
wounds and tortures about to be undergone by Jesus. This
petition was granted by the blessed Trinity and the Mother
in consequence suffered all the torments of her most holy
son in exact duplcation. Although they were such, that, if
the right hand of the Alighty had not preserved Her, they
would have caused her death many times over; yet, on the
other hand, these sufferings, inflicted by God Himself,
were like a pledge and a new lease of life. For in Her most
ardent love She would have considered it incomparably more
painful to see her divine Son suffer and die without being
allowed to share in his torments. She wept at the perdition
of the foreknown; for She was highly enlightened in the
mysteries of eternal predestination and reprobation. In
order to imitate and co-operate in all things with the
redeemer of the world, the great Lady also suffered a
bloody sweat, similar to that of Jesus in the garden, and
by divine intervention She was visited by the archangel
Gabriel, as Christ her Son was visited by the archangel
Michael.The
Lord returned to the Apostles and finding them asleep spoke
to them: "Sleep ye now, and take your rest. It is enough:
the hour is come; behold the Son of man shall be betrayed
into the hands of sinners. Rise up, let us go. Behold he
that will betray Me is at hand". The Master then gave
orders, that all of them together, mystically forming one
body with Him their Head, should advance toward the
enemies, thereby teaching them the power of mutual and
perfect unity for overcoming the demons and their followers
and for avoiding defeat by them. For a triple cord is hard
to tear, as says Ecclesiastes (4,12), and he that is mighty
against one, may be overcome by two, that being the effect
of union. Our Savior then proceeded to meet them on the
way, and with incomparable love, magnanimous courage and
tender piety prayed interiorly: "O sufferings longingly
desired from my inmost soul, ye pains, wounds, affronts,
labors, afflictions and ignominious death, come, come, come
quickly, for the fire of love, which burns for the
salvation of men, is anxious to see you meet the Innocent
one of all creatures. Well do I know your value, I have
sought, desired and solicited you and I meet you joyously
of my own free will; I have pursued you by my anxiety in
searching for you and I esteem you for your merits. I
desire to remedy and enhance your value and raise you to
highest dignity. Let death come, in order that by my
accepting it without having deserved it I may triumph over
it and gain life for those who have been punished by death
for their sins. I give permission to my friends to forsake
Me; for I alone desire and am able to enter into this
battle and gain for them triumph and victory" (Is.
53,3).
Behold
The
Lamb
Of
God
The
most pure Mother of Christ our Lord was most attentive to
all that passed in his capture, and by means of her clear
visions saw it more clearly than if She had been present in
person; for by means of her supernatural visions She
penetrated into all the mysteries of his words and actions.
When She beheld the band of soldiers and servants issuing
from the house of the high priest, the prudent Lady forsaw
the irreverence and insults with which they would treat
their Creator and Redeemer; and in order to do what was in
her power, She invited the holy angels and many others in
union with Her to render adoration and praise to the Lord
of creation as an offset to the injuries and affronts He
would sustain at the hands of those ministers of
darkness.
The Scourging and Crowning with
Thorns
When the great Queen and Lady was about to set
forth from the Cenacle, saint John arrived, in order to
give an ccount of all that was happening. Saint John
thought it well to prepare the afflicted Mother for her
meeting with her most holy Son, in order that She might not
be overcome by the fearful spectacle of his present
condition. Therfore he sought to impress Her beforehand
with some image of his sufferings by saying: "O my Lady, in
what a state of suffering is our Divine Master! The sight
of Him cannot but break one's heart; for by the buffets and
the blows and by the spittle, his most beautiful
countenance is so disfigured and defiled, that Thou wilt
scarcely recognize Him with Thy own eyes". The Queen of
heaven asked the Apostle to accompany Her and the devout
women, and, exorting them all, She said: "Let us hasten our
steps, in order that my eyes may see the Son of the eternal
Father, who took human form in My womb; and you shall see,
my dearest friends, to what the love of mankind has driven
Him, my Lord and God, and what it cost Him to redeem man
from sin and death, and to open for them the gate of
heaven."Through the swarming and
confused crowds the angels conducted the Empress of heaven
to a sharp turn of the street, where She met her most holy
Son. With the profoundest reverence She prostrated Herself
before his sovereign Person and adored it more fervently
and with a reverence more deep and more ardent than ever
was given or ever shall be given to it by all the
creatures. She arose and then the Mother and Son looked
upon each other with ineffable tenderness. The image of Her
divine Son, thus wounded, defiled and bound, remained so
firmly fixed and imprinted in the soul of our Queen, that
during Her life it was never effaced, and remained in her
mind as distinctly, as if She were continually beholding
Him with Her own eyes.
Thereupon those ministers
of satan, with many others, brought Jesus our Savior to the
place of punishment, which was a courtyard or enclosure
attached to the house and set apart for the torture of
criminals in order to force them to confess their crimes.
It was surrounded by a low, open building, surrounded by
columns, some of which supported the roof, while others
were lower and stood free. To one of these columns, which
was of marble, they bound Jesus very securely. They first
took off his white garment. In loosening the ropes and
chains, which He had borne since his capture in the garden,
they cruelly widened the wounds which his bonds had made in
his arms and wrists. Having freed his hands, they commanded
Him with infamous blasphemies to despoil Himself of the
seamless tunic which He wore.Thereupon those ministers
of satan, with many others, brought Jesus our Savior to the
place of punishment, which was a courtyard or enclosure
attached to the house and set apart for the torture of
criminals in order to force them to confess their crimes.
It was surrounded by a low, open building, surrounded by
columns, some of which supported the roof, while others
were lower and stood free. To one of these coumns, which
was of marble, they bound Jesus very securely. They first
took off his white garment. In loosening the ropes and
chains, which He had borne since his capture in the garden,
they cruelly widened the wounds which his bonds had made in
his arms and wrists. Having freed his hands, they commanded
Him with infamous blasphemies to despoil Himself of the
seamless tunic which He wore. This was the identical
garment with which his most blessed Mother had clothed Him
in Egypt when He first began to walk.
Thus the Lord stood
uncovered in the presence of a great multitude and the six
torturers bound Him brutally to one of the columns in order
to chastise Him so much the more at their ease. Then, two
and two at a time, they began to scourge Him with such
inhuman cruelty, as was possible only in men possessed by
Lucifer, as were these executioners. The first two scourged
the innocent Savior with hard and thick cords, full of
rough knots, and in their sacrilegious fury strained all
the powers of their body to inflict the