A Mother's Heart is a Gethsemane

 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.

Gethsemane

I discovered this beautiful song a short time ago.  It is meant for children, but it is nice to have something in a range I can sing.  Also, our Lord told us that we must become like little children if we want to enter the Kingdom of Heaven.

Despite trying to become like that little child looking up to my Father to provide all that I need, I am finding the quarantine begin to wear on me, as I expect you are also.  Today I am thinking especially of all those struggling with it, of all those dealing with heartache, of all those who are lonely, and of all those feeling hopeless.  I am thinking also of Christ in Gethsemane, aching for consolation, crying out to the Father and yet remaining so alone in His agony.

Music is helping keep my eyes turned toward Him, so this song is as much my prayer as my song.  It is my prayer for you in whatever you need right now:

Gethsemane

Father, let this suffering pass from us; nevertheless, not my will, but Thine be done.

Pilgrimage During the Pandemic

Many people have been criticizing our leaders in the Church for cancelling all public Masses while we quarantine for the pandemic and many complain of not being able to receive the Sacraments.  I must admit hearing those things does trouble me.  It makes me wonder what the Church should do.  Is She merely pandering to the government decisions to avoid outright conflict?  Is She thus abandoning Her mission to nourish our faith by treating the physical health and well-being of the most vulnerable as more important than our spiritual health?

Perhaps She might be rather calling us to enter more deeply into the mystical reality.  I have written already of our being called to receive the Sacrament of the Present Moment.  Now, however, I mean far more than that: I mean the eternal reality.

For the Church as we know Her will not endure.  The Sacraments will pass away.  The Eucharist, as precious a gift as It is, will no longer be needed.

When we come to the Eternal City, we shall be face to face with the living God, with I-Am-Who-Am.  We shall no longer need to receive through Sacraments, which make visible the invisible, providing grace to sustain us in our exile here in this valley of tears, for we shall then be in intimate union with Him.

All the grace we receive is meant to prepare us for that.  Reception of the Eucharist in particularly brings us into intimate relationship with Christ, our crucified Lord.

Does it?

"I am the Lord thy God, who brought thee out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage.  Thou shalt not have strange gods before me."

Exodus 20:2-3

Despite this commandment, we often allow our minds and hearts to turn to idols without realizing it.  Even our spiritual practices may become idols.  It is far easier to cling to devotions and the practice of the spiritual life than to come into a deep and intimate relationship with the Unknown God—the God we can never fully understand because He is infinite and we mere finite creatures.

"For my thoughts are not your thoughts: nor your ways my ways, saith the Lord.  For as the heavens are exalted above the earth, so are my ways exalted above your ways, and my thoughts above your thoughts."

Isaiah 55:8-9

The moment we believe we have understood the mind of God is the moment we have created God in our own image.  If that's not an idol, I don't know what is.

Perhaps that may sound extreme to you.  Perhaps you may wonder why I mention this possibility.

I will tell you: it is because I am trying to take seriously the call to conversion in this time.  I don't want to fall into criticizing our leaders in the Church or in our government, placing myself on the high pedestal of godhood in dictating what ought to happen in these present circumstances.  I don't want to fall into that trap even in the hidden corners of my heart.

Rather, I want this time of quarantine to bear the same fruit that grew from that of the Desert Fathers who chose isolation as a way to encounter God.  I want to see the harvest like unto that of those who seek a life of contemplation in the cloister.  I want my heart and mind to be converted.  In short, I seek and pray for that true metanoia that is to be transformed by Him who is leading us from glory to glory (see 2 Corinthians 3:18) that I may be purified of all attachment to sin or self-seeking, ready to see Him face to face.

I don't want to fall into desolation or despondency or frustration at being deprived of what I deem necessary.  I don't want to believe I am merely in a state of suspended animation, waiting for the virus to end.

Rather, I want to see these days in the desert as communion with the Father.  I want to see them as time to give Him my fiat as our Lady did when the Angel Gabriel appeared to her and told her that she would be the Mother of the Messiah and as Christ did in the Garden of Gethsemane when He asked that the cup of suffering should pass Him by:

"Nevertheless not what I will,
but what Thou wilt."

Luke 22:42

Pray for that for me.

I will pray the same for you.

My Garden Prayer

Fear binds my trembling blinded soul.

“Father, take this cup away!”

I long for Thee with all I am.

Yet doubt invades, consumes,

Keeps me far from Thee. Why

Must I hate Thy cross? Why seek

What is not Thee, to passing

Pleasures cling? I want them not,

But only Thee, who art

Forever.  That agony reigns

As I come before Thy throne.

I fall exhausted at Thy feet.

“Father, let Thy will be done!”