Not one of the apostles could stay awake to keep watch with Christ as He suffered His agony in the Garden of Gethsemane, but I cannot help but believe there was one who kept watch with Him even though she was not in the Garden with Him. Perhaps some of the mystics wrote about His Mother keeping watch in prayer with Him that night wherever she happened to be. How could such a Mother, united so closely to her Son, not know in her heart and soul of His agony?
A mother suffers when her children suffer. Perhaps in a way she even suffers more than they suffer, for she can see more clearly than they where their paths lead and the pain they will bring upon themselves. She wants to spare them all the suffering that she can—even to wishing she could take on their pain for them.
"Father, let this cup pass from Me; nevertheless not My will but Thine be done."
So Christ prayed in Gethsemane. How powerless He must have felt as He knelt and prayed, faced with the anguish of knowing the suffering He would undergo. Likewise how powerless a mother feels as she prays to the Father that He might take away her cup, which is to spare her children their suffering.
It is easy to focus on Christ's agony as His fear and terror of the cruel torture He would experience in being scourged, crowned with thorns, mocked, condemned to death, and crucified. Yet what is such physical suffering in comparison to the pain of His heart?
He chose to suffer out of love. Consider for a moment what that means: He suffered such a cruel death not merely to fulfill the demands of justice and allow us to enter heaven, but because He loves us and desires us to be in intimate relationship with Him. One who loves infinitely must suffer infinitely.
He loves you and wants you close to His heart. You. Not the you that you would like to be, but you as you are. You have a special place in His heart that He gives to none other.
So many turn away from such love. Who can bear it?
Think of the pain you have ever felt when someone rejected your love. His pain in Gethsemane—the cup He asked His Father to take away—must have been bitter with unrequited love. He longed so much for all to love Him and yet knew how many would reject Him. He must have felt as He knelt there that His sacrifice was in vain—that it was not enough for Him to suffer such pain out of love, for it would not be enough to win the hearts of all to love Him. The devil must have tempted Him with the folly of His sacrifice, urging Him to give it up as fruitless because He would give all that He had and it would not be enough.
A mother's heart serves as a similar battleground. A mother gives everything she has and it is not enough. How much she must be tempted to think that it is all in vain and to feel the agony of her own powerlessness in the face of what she desires with all her heart and soul. Truly she is united in that pain with Christ in Gethsemane.
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