This page needs to be proofread.
Peter, James and John He advanced into the garden. He began to be sorrowful and said to them: “My soul is sorrowful even unto death[1]; stay ye here and watch with Me!”
Then going a little further (Fig. 86), He fell upon His Face, saying: “My Father, if it be possible, let this chalice[2] pass from Me. Nevertheless, not as I will, but as Thou wilt.”
- ↑ Unto death. “I am brought nigh unto death by the anguish of my soul." In this hour of need our Blessed Lord was deprived of all divine consolation, and bade His three disciples to stay near Him, and watch and pray with Him. He was so entirely destitute of all interior consolation, that He even sought for exterior consolation from His own creatures, and wished to have them near Him. We all know the comfort of having loving friends near us when we are in sorrow and fear.
- ↑ This chalice. “Spare Me the bitter Passion and Death which await Me!" The figure of a cup full of bitter gall, revolting as it is to the nature of man to drink, is used to describe the awful anguish of Body and Soul which Jesus suffered until the moment when He bowed His Head and gave up the ghost. In His prayer He called it this chalice, because He saw before Him most clearly every terrible detail of His Passion and Death. He knew the decree of the Eternal Father, that the world was to be redeemed by His Sufferings and Death, and He was, therefore, ready to suffer and die for us, and drink the bitter cup; but the vision of the greatness of His Sufferings and the terrible manner of His Death filled His human nature with fear, and He shrank from “this” chalice, so brimful of bitterness, and prayed to be spared the drinking of it. At the same time, He committed everything to His Father, and full of submission to His will added: “not as I will, but as Thou wilt — I am ready to endure this fearful torment if it really be Thy will.”
