Saint Paul wrote to the Corinthians that for our sake, God made Him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in Him we might become the righteousness of God. In the first letter of Peter, we read: He Himself bore our sins in His body. He had not committed them, but He bore them. Yet, he experienced the terrible horror of sin since He was about to carry all the sins of mankind. What was happening in Gethsemane? What was the torment going on inside Jesus? Some of the great mystic saints describe a similar experience, what Saint John of the Cross called the “dark night of the soul.” Our soul can be filled with great sorrow, fear, even desperation when God allows us to see clearly our own sinfulness. This was Jesus’ spiritual agony, something even more painful than His physical agony. The evangelists tell us that Jesus was greatly distressed and troubled.
Or another translation : My soul is ready to die with sorrow. There in the garden, Jesus Himself expressed in words the intensity of His agony: my soul is sorrowful even to death. I believe that, together with Jesus hanging on the cross, the mystery of the agony in the garden is the most profound mystery to contemplate in the whole story of the passion, in the event of our redemption. This important episode in the mystery of Christ’s passion is described in all four Gospels as well as the mention in this Sunday’s reading from the letter to the Hebrews. But I’d like to reflect with you on the interior or spiritual aspect of Jesus’ passion which had its culminating moment in Jesus’ agony in Gethsemane. They also provide us with a feeling of Christ’s union with us when we experience physical pain and illness. Reflecting on these aspects of the passion moves our hearts, helps us to appreciate the depth of God’s love for us. These sufferings remind us of the horrible physical torment Jesus underwent for love of us. We think about the physical pain He suffered carrying the cross, the pain He felt being stripped of His garments, the excruciating pain of being nailed to the cross. We meditate on His scourging at the pillar and His crowning with thorns. Often in our devotion to the passion of Christ, we consider the physical aspect of Jesus’ suffering. This passage recalls the agony of Jesus in Gethsemane. Son though he was, he learned obedience from what he suffered and when he was made perfect, he became the source of eternal salvation for all who obey him (Hebrews 5:7-9). In the second reading this Sunday, the Fifth Sunday of Lent, we read: In the days when Christ was in the flesh, he offered prayers and supplications with loud cries and tears to the one who was able to save him from death, and he was heard because of his reverence. As we approach Holy Week, I invite you to reflect on the sorrowful mystery of Jesus’ agony in the garden of Gethsemane.
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