Thursdays in the Garden: Vigil Four: “For One Hour”

Welcome to our Vigil Four of a 7-Thursday Lenten Retreat of guided Holy Hours to console and spend time watching and praying with Our Lord in Gethsemane. Each vigil is unique and independent from the others. ( Please note: if you’re just joining us on the journey now, it’s fine to just pick up from this point on. But if you want to catch up on what you’ve missed, you can find previous Vigils here. ) Our time will make every Thursday of Lent special by going to Gethsemane in prayer. These Thursdays with Our Lord will make for a more beautiful Lent, very meaningful Triduum, and yet more joyous Easter.

You are in a place set apart where you can console and make reparation to Our Lord, where He was most alone and specifically asked for company! You are not here by accident. He is waiting for you. You’ve been invited… thank you for saying YES!

We invite you to bring your special intentions along with you as you pray, and please leave any prayer intentions below in comments.

Be Thou blessed, O Jesus, for all Your sighs on that holy night; and for the tears which You did shed for us.
Be Thou blessed, O Jesus, for Your sweat of blood and the terrible Agony, which You did suffer lovingly in coldest abandonment and in inscrutable loneliness.
Be Thou blessed, O Jesus, filled with immeasurable bitterness, for the prayer which flowed in trembling Agony from Your Heart, so truly human and divine.
Amen”

An important part of the Holy Hour Devotion is taking time for contemplation. And so, as a Lectio Divina reflection:

Read, Meditate, Pray, and Contemplate the following passage of Scripture. Which word or phrase moves you the most spiritually, or speaks to you about something you are going through at this time? Which word calls to you to take new action in your life?

And he cometh to his disciples, and findeth them asleep, and he saith to Peter: What? Could you not watch one hour with me? —MT 26:40

Ponder and pray: Think of how you ARE watching ONE HOUR with Our Lord in Gethsemane HERE in this Holy Hour. What are you sacrificing to be here with Him? How were you led to this devotion?  How can you share this experience with others? Who can you share this with? Knowing God is calling for souls to watch with Him for one hour… a request He DIRECTLY makes…who else can you bring to the Garden? Click here to send an invite to a friend. This is a true work of mercy and act of love for Lent.

Francis Patrick Donnelly was born in 1869 and died in 1959. He was a great promoter of the Holy Hour devotion. Not much is known about his personal life but his absolute love of Our Lord shines through in his writings. Below is his meditation on the strength in trials that comes from even one hour watching and praying with Our Lord in Gethsemane.

The Passion gives heart in little trials

We have our agonies; we have our crucifixions. They are little or nothing when compared with the Agony and Crucifixion of Christ, but they are gigantic and fearful when compared with our pitiable weakness. We have no heart to face one minute of agony, much less one hour of it. We chafe at the little things which vex us in our homes. A scornful laugh falls upon our tender feelings with the sting of a scourge. Forgetfulness or lack of attention or trivial accidents are all so many thorns piercing us on all sides. We are denied some show of affection, and our hearts are pierced to the core. How insignificant, how petty all this is when set side by side with the Passion of Christ! Alas for us when we do not look to Christ in His Agony or to Jesus upon His Cross.

Yet not all of our trials are trivial ones. Sickness comes upon us and sorrow fills our days. Our best efforts end in disappointment. We struggle and keep on struggling and yet we fail. Are we to become helpless invalids? Are we to see no light breaking in upon our gloom? Are we always to be defeated and never to enjoy the sweets of victory? Surely, there is no such unhappy prospect before us. But as we stumble and fall beneath our burdens, we fear that some day we shall not rise again.

A steep hillside looms before us and, look, upon its slopes there are the prints of One who has struggled up that rugged steep. And is not that a stain of blood we make out?

Assuredly we need a strong, sustaining hand in these trials, and we find it in Him who has gone before us and Whose footsteps we are following.

Passion of Christ, give me heart from Thee…

Verse: That Thy Agony may help us in our agonies,
Response: We beseech Thee to hear us!
Verse: That Thy Suffering be a support in our sufferings,
Response: We beseech Thee to hear us!
Verse: That Thy death may comfort us in our death
Response: We beseech Thee to hear us!

Prayer

Jesus, our crucified leader, who hast for us unflinchingly traveled the Agony in the Garden and painful way of the Cross, welcome us with sustaining love when we watch and pray with Thee and share with us the courage of Thy Heart, that we may endure our agonies and bear our crosses willingly; that we  mount bravely to our crucifixion, through the help of Thy grace. Amen.
—by Father Francis P. Donnelly

Pause now to pray the First Sorrowful Mystery, the Agony in the Garden, reflecting on the words of Fr. Francis P. Donnelly. If you like to extend your Holy Hour, finish the entire Rosary.

Together we pray, as Fr. Francis P. Donnelly said so well: that we may endure our agonies and bear our crosses willingly…with the courage of the Heart of Jesus.

Click here for a guided video of the Sorrowful Mysteries of the Rosary.

Reflection: The Power of an Hour
by Annabelle Moseley

It was the Lenten season—and our family’s Lent became that much more real when we were called to the hospital one evening to visit Grandpapa, who’d had a bad night. I remember that just before we got to Grandpapa’s room, my father took my hand and suddenly whisked me away a few doors down to a waiting room. Its many windows overlooked the hospital roof, which was covered with roosting pigeons.

My eyes fell upon them immediately. I wished I was out there in the fresh air with them where I could stretch my proverbial wings rather than be stuck here in this sudden holding pattern. I would have rathered anything but waiting here, not knowing what was wrong and not being able to do something.

“Look, they even have a frozen yogurt machine,” my father said with a hopeful tone in his voice. “Let me show you how to work it. You might have to wait here for a while.” He sighed deeply. “It’s getting serious with Grandpapa and they don’t want you to hear everything they’re talking about.” This cut me to the quick. I watched in silence as he instructed me on how to work a machine for snacks and for beverages. He was working so hard to set me up with some joy.

I did not know that in only nine months I would be in the same room again and would know my way around it well because he had shown it to me. I would be there again because this time it would be my father who was dying, and I would be remembering what to do because of his instructions this day…

Don’t leave,” I wanted to say to him as he walked out of the room. But I knew I had to stay here, as they were trying to protect me from something. The best way I could help would be to keep a kind of vigil. I watched the pigeons that had gathered on the roof in droves, I ate my cup of frozen yogurt, and then just waited in silence. Not another soul walked in. I was the only person in the room and I wondered if they had all forgotten about me or if things were going so badly that they couldn’t yet return. The minutes dragged on until I realized I had been there an hour. I asked God for help. While my father was trying to protect me in this room, I was very much still on the battle front, and was frustrated to be kept back from where I felt my place should have been.

I realize now that just being there, watching and praying, was a good vigil that I could offer my Grandfather… though I was down the hall, a stone’s throw away from his room. This was a Gethsemane of sorts.

When my parents returned to me in the waiting room, they told me Grandpapa would be transferred to a hospital for terminal patients. They were getting him ready. He’d had a hard night the night before, and as he stayed awake with his bed sores aching, he had become aware that the patient who shared his room, just behind the curtain, was dying. Though Grandpapa had no voice at this point, and could therefore say nothing to the man… he very clearly heard the man’s breathing change as he passed away. So he acted on the man’s behalf. Grandpapa wrote on his notepad to us, “I knew we were like soldiers in a foxhole together. So I prayed him through.” Grandpapa stayed awake for about an hour, praying with every ounce of his strength for the man he barely knew who was just behind the curtain.

My lonely hour in the waiting room meant more to me now than it had once I heard this story. Just as Grandpapa had prayed this man through in a sad and solitary hour, I had in my little way spent my sad hour offering a vigil for Grandpapa.

It being Lent, a solemn Holy time in our Catholic faith when we journey with Christ to His Crucifixion and death on Calvary, it was striking that the family was simultaneously on a journey of sorrow with our beloved Grandpapa as he journeyed to the Father, and to “Calvary,” a hospital for terminal patients. He wished to go there as a final retreat of sorts. The time had come. He rode in the back of the ambulette, facing out the back window, with his oldest son “riding shotgun,” as they both put it. My grandmother and the others followed in a caravan of cars, and Grandpapa gave his signature wave to all. When they arrived at Calvary, he smiled and gave everyone a thumbs-up. He knew where he was, and that he had chosen wisely.

This was a Lenten journey his family would oddly cherish. They witnessed faith in his living and dying. During his end days he wrote on paper: “When I see Jesus I’m going to bow.”

The man who stood at my side and held my hand, who was worth every hour we kept vigil with him, who had kept so many hours vigil with Our Lord, offering Him his agony, who waved faithfully until all were out of sight, left us on the day our faith sets aside for waving— waving to the Lord as he entered Jerusalem, greeting Jesus with jubilant palms. That Palm Sunday, as my grandfather met the Lord and bowed, and even as we wept, there was everywhere in the Catholic world a great and faithful waving.

Every hour we offer with love is worth so much. This side of heaven, we should never underestimate the power of an hour.

A Crown for Jesus in the Garden

Sonnet IV of a Crown of Sonnets
from Awake with Christ, by Annabelle Moseley

You ask the Father that this cup might pass—
yet do the Father’s will. Anguished Bridegroom—
I’ll drink a drop, too, of that draught. The Mass
you celebrated in the Upper Room—
held up a chalice; shared a cup. So now?
I’ll share this cup too. Not just in the sweet—
but in the bitter, like a marriage vow.
I pray to do Your Will. As bread and meat
and drink let Your Will be for me—always.
O Living Water, one who calls “I thirst,”
You thirst for souls. So set my heart ablaze
that I may watch and pray, do God’s will first—
That I may never sleep or run away.
That I may wakefully, willfully stay.

How to do this:

• You’ve already accompanied Our Lord through this Holy Hour. What is another hour you can set aside for Him this week?
• Think about how you use time. Ponder something that takes an hour of your time that you might be able to sacrifice and offer up for Lent this week. For example: can you do without an hour television show? An hour of scrolling on your phone? Can you rise an hour earlier or go to bed an hour later and use that hour for prayer?


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Deepen the beauty and meaning of your Holy Thursday this year by reading Awake with Christ: How Keeping God Prayerful Company in the Garden of Gethsemane Can Change Your Life.

This book is a quick read but makes a big impact to your Lent. It also helps you look ahead to a holier Eastertide, as the theme of the second part of the book is the Resurrection, and how we get closer to Our Risen Lord through the Garden.