Thursdays in the Garden: Vigil Six: “This Cup”

We are now at Vigil Six of our 7-Thursday Lenten Retreat. We have been “running the race” together, and are rapidly approaching Holy Week, and the feast of our great devotion, Holy Thursday! If you need to catch up on what you’ve missed, you can check out previous Vigils here. Our prayer warriors have made every Thursday of Lent special by going to Gethsemane in prayer. These Thursdays with our Lord are making for a more beautiful Lent, and looking toward a deeply meaningful Passiontide.

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…and thank you for every comment telling us how this time praying the Holy Hour is fruitful for you! Taking the time to do that really makes our day.

We’re so happy to be journeying together with you! As Venerable Fulton Sheen reminds, “the only time Our Lord asked the Apostles for anything was the night he went into his agony. […] Not for an hour of activity did He plead, but for an hour of companionship.” 

Most Holy Trinity, grant that the knowledge, and thereby the love, of the Agony of Jesus on the Mount of Olives will spread throughout the whole world.”
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?

He went away again a second time and prayed, saying, “My Father, if this cup cannot pass away unless I drink from it, Your will be done.” MT 26:42

Ponder and pray: what is the cup you have had to drink? Reflect upon this. Bring this realization as a gift and offering to Our Lord in prayer.

Fr. Josef Staudinger was a professor in the Seminary of Klagenfurt, Austria, and published many books on Catholic Theology. Many of these were translated from their original German into other languages. For many years, Fr. Staudinger’s work was a mainstay in many seminaries, especially his work, “On the Holiness of the Priesthood” (1957). It not only served as a guidebook for navigating the priestly life, but especially the inner spirituality of the priest. The book emphasized the importance of priests having a strong prayer life.  

The Passion gives heart in little trials

The will of the Father had been, in truth, the lodestar of His life. Now leading Him to the goal He had chosen from eternity, it was offering Him the bitter cup of suffering so that countless human hearts might find salvation and, with Him, praise the Father forever. It was that will of which He had so frequently spoken to others, which He had taught them to adore even in the darkest hours.

Seized with horror and perplexity He groans aloud for anguish. His eyes wander searchingly upward through the obscurity of night and with quivering lips He implores His heavenly Father: ‘Father, if it be possible, let this chalice (this cup) pass from me.’ But at the next moment, hiding His face in His trembling hands He adds with child-like resignation, ‘Yet, Father, not my will but thine be done.’

Then in answer to His prayer He had the sight of an angel from heaven consoling Him. What form did this consolation take? … In keeping with the laws of his Messianic mission, He would not work a miracle Himself, so the Father intervenes by sending an angel to comfort and strengthen Him for further suffering. This intervention was indeed necessary, for no sooner had the angel disappeared than His soul reached its lowest depths of desolation.

He realizes that the will of the Father is that He should die. From eternity He had lovingly submitted Himself to this will for man’s salvation. The will of the Father, with which His own will is fully united, shines out even now as a kindly star above the sombre darkness that blankets His soul. He clings fixedly to it, making gradual headway against the fear of death in a heroic struggle within the human nature He had assumed. In this struggle, two opposing currents meet: in the soul, the will to die; in the flesh, the will to live. A fearful combat ensues which causes the blood vessels in His sacred body to dilate and contract in turn. The blood rushes, as in the heat of fever, through His veins, forcing its way through the opened pores, and is visible on His forehead in small thick drops till, increasing in volume, it falls to the ground, as St. Luke reports. Christ sweated blood!

By the way of explanation it is sometimes said that fear caused the sweat. But fear drives the blood back to the heart, inducing pallor; whereas in this instance the blood is forced away from the heart to the extremest pores of the body, and that with such violence that the delicate blood vessels could not withstand the pressure but were broken through. Christ’s blood cannot therefore be the result of fear. It was caused rather by the effort to overcome it, and was proof of His determination to make the supreme sacrifice out of love for us.

Christ struggled— in the full literal sense of the word— with death for our sakes.

Reflection: This Cup
by Annabelle Moseley

In my copy of the Children’s Illustrated Bible, one of the stories that left the biggest impression upon me was Job. I felt a deep connection with Job during the three weeks my father was in a coma. By the beginning of the final week, I was told that we needed to let my father know that it was alright for him to die. He could still hear, I was told, yet the doctors said there was no way he could wake up again and he was weakening. I was told by the grownups that he needed to let go, and that he was probably worried about me. My mother and the other family members had all spoken to him with love and reassurance. So I stood in his room and told him, “It’s okay, Daddy, do whatever you need to do. I’ll be alright. I love you.” And I felt like a fraud because I wanted to shout, “wake up, I need you.”

What I really wanted to do was beg God to spare my father, saying only “give me back my father.” And though I moved to pray that way, what I was gripped with instead was the fearsome moment of realizing that God was in charge, and not me. The prayer that surfaced in the end was, “please do what’s best for my father, God.”

I have come to realize that it was a moment of “not my will but Your will be done,” of Gethsemane. Today I see that it was a child’s offering of loving desperation to God the Father. Not done needing my dad, not yet grown, to pray “do what’s best,” felt impossible… but it was necessary. It was the cup I had to drink. It was in His hands.

I’ll never forget the night I asked my mother, “What do you think God feels about us losing Daddy?”

Totally bereft, and still trying to process it all, I waited to take my cue from her wisdom. I was cut to the core and comforted at the same time when she responded, “I think God is crying.”

I’m still grateful for her poignant answer. It made all the difference in the world in how I would process my grief. It was an instruction manual I’ve had to refer back to many times.

I. Job Addresses God

“Then, Job began to tear his cloak and cut off his hair.” Job 1:20

The silence is all. Though I want to split
the stillness of this day with fractured cries,
and tear this room apart, I will admit
that such a sundering would not be wise.
What would it do to shatter every dish,
or smash the vases, break each cup and bowl?
How would that change what I’ve begun to wish—
that I could go right back to being whole—
even if it meant forgetting you and
the great pain that loving you has brought?
I tore my hair today. You understand?
My clothing too. I wait for you to cry
out, ask me  not to harm myself. I won’t.
But I know loneliness. And God, You don’t.

II. God Answers Job

Who is this that obscures divine plans with words of ignorance?… Where were you when I founded the earth?” (Job 38:2,4)

You say I don’t know loneliness. What, Job,
you’ve never seen the chasms between stars?
Observe the distance of your heart, then probe
yourself for answers. Look down at your scars.
You think I put them there, I know. But pain
is from your world, not mine. And all the while,
I plan my entrance. Gardens all need rain
to raise their beauty. My plot grows a trial
of such deep suffering, the torn curtain
of a great temple will be how I rend
the earth of sleep. Sacrifice makes certain
a love that will not hesitate or end.
Mend yourself, now. Follow my command.
(I’m pierced in ways you’ll never understand.)

—Annabelle Moseley (from Our House of the Sacred Heart)

A Crown for Jesus in the Garden

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

To comfort you in cold Gethsemane
I want to give the Son of Man a place
to rest his head—oh, won’t You please let me,
like Saint Mary, meet You with an embrace?
I ask to serve You like Saint Martha here,
to wait on You, as though the olive trees
were walls of home—the rock, a table where
refreshments could be brought for You. The breeze
is conversation’s breath. Soft grass, a chair
where you could sit. May I anoint your feet
with this Mount’s oil, and dry them with my hair?
I kiss each drop of your lost blood, and greet
You with a crown of loving words, to bring
relief and reparation to my King.

Next week will be Holy Thursday, the day we Gethsemane devotees have been preparing for all Lent, that we may love Him better in Gethsemane than we ever have before and thus, have a more profound and meaningful Triduum and Easter. While Jesus was agonizing on the Mount of Olives, Our Blessed Mother was suffering with her son in spirit. Let us console her now while we listen and reflect upon this sublime work of music, “Ave Maria” by Michael Lorenc, performed by Olga Szyrowa. As we listen, let us pray the First Sorrowful Mystery, the Agony in the Garden, but reflecting on Mary’s sorrow in not being able to go with Jesus to Gethsemane physically… as she prayed and sent consolation to Him spiritually. Let us console Our Lady for this entire first Mystery, and if we so desire, the entire Sorrowful Mysteries of the Rosary. Or simply listen to the music and reflect upon your love for Jesus and Mary in the reality of their joined sacrifices.

• Offer up your hurts, sorrows, disappointments to Christ in the Garden.
  Take time to journal this and pray on it.
• Among the bitterness of the cup you have to drink, taste the sweetness of the gift you are offering to Christ.
• Let this be the year we make each of our homes and hearts His Altar of Repose! How can we do this? In anticipation for Holy Thursday night, you can set up an altar honoring Our Lord right in your own home. Then, when you pray your at-home Holy Hour on Holy Thursday, you will feel even more deeply that you have prepared a space lovingly dedicated to watch and pray with Jesus. Imagine how pleased Our Lord will be as He watches you set this up! It is truly a great way to make the Triduum come alive in your home.

Here’s a few ways you can set up your altar. If possible, place a white or purple cloth or table runner, or lace to adorn your altar. Then, prominently feature an image of Our Lord. Great choices for the image include a depiction of Our Lord in Gethsemane, or a picture or statue of the Sacred Heart of Jesus. To make this altar feel more like an Altar of Repose, adorn it with fresh flowers (to represent the Garden of Gethsemane), candlelight (if you’re concerned for safety, use LED candles!) and other sacramentals such as a font or bottle of holy water and your favorite Rosary. Be sure this altar you create has a comfortable place to sit or kneel nearby, so you will feel like spending at least an hour in this holy space, carving out time to console Our Lord in His Agony in the Garden, and joining your heart to His. Now all you’ve left to do is… keep your eyes on your inbox for the newest at-home Holy Hour!

Our team is busily making these Holy Hours for you, and all this hard work is making us thirsty! Please buy us a coffee here.

We have received several notes from prayer warriors asking where they could donate to support the work we do at this apostolate. We are so grateful for the request! If you want to support this apostolate in any way, please do so through Buy Me a Coffee. Every gift helps us keep the lights on, the coffee brewing and the prayer guides coming. Thank you and may God reward you!

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.