First Sorrowful
Mystery, The Agony in the Garden
From On the Passion of Jesus Christ,
St. Alphonsus de Liguori
[Our Blessed Lord, kneeling down to pray,] began to
feel great repugnance at the sight of the pains that had been prepared for him.
When one feels repugnance, even delightful things become painful. Hence with
such a repugnance what punishment for the heart of Jesus, what horrible sight
then presented itself to his mind of all the interior and exterior torments
which were to deprive him of life by afflicting so cruelly his body and his
blessed soul! He distinctly saw all the sufferings that awaited him, the
mockeries, the outrages, the injuries, the blows, the thorns, the cross, and
above all that shameful and desolate death which he was to suffer on an infamous
cross, abandoned by everyone, by men and by God, in an abyss of sorrows and
disgrace. This is what caused him so bitter a repugnance that he was obliged to
ask his eternal Father for strength: He began to fear and to be heavy.
With this fear and
repugnance Jesus felt at the same time great sadness and great affliction of
mind: he began to grow sorrowful and to be sad. But, O Lord! Is it not You that
have given to Your martyrs such a force in sufferings that they went so far as
to despise torments and death and to submit to them with joy? How then does it
happen that for Yourself, O Jesus! You have reserved Yourself to suffer by dying
in so great sadness? Ah! I know the reason for at this
moment there were presented to his mind all the sins of the world, the
blasphemies, the sacrileges, the impurities, and all the other sins that men
were going to commit after his death. Each one of these sins came then as a
cruel monster to tear his heart by its own malice. It seems that then in his
agony our afflicted Savior was obliged to say: O men! is it thus that you
respond to the immense love that I have borne towards you? Alas! after so many
sufferings endured for you, to see so many sins! After so many proofs of my
love, to see so much ingratitude! It is that which afflicts me, makes me sad
even unto death, and makes me sweat blood: And
his sweat became as drops of blood trickling down upon the ground.
O my tender Jesus! I do not notice in this garden scourges,
thorns, nails, which wound You; yet I see You bathed in blood from head to
foot. My sins therefore were the cruel pressure which, by the violence of the
affliction and of sadness, forced so much blood from Your heart. I have myself
been one of Your most cruel executioners. … How dear did it cost You to make me
comprehend the love which You have for me! Oh, grant me those aids to love You
which You have merited for me by so many sufferings! Bestow upon me that sacred
fire which You did come to enkindle upon earth by dying for us. Be ever
reminding me of Your death that I may never forget to love You.
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