Meditating on the Sorrowful Mysteries of the Rosary this Friday, I had a clearer notion of Christ’s personal situation during His Passion.

Everything Christ did during His life, and especially during those awful last hours, point to His great love for us. 

But our human notion of real love is sketchy at best. Only through examining love in action through Jesus can we grasp the real essence of love.

Stopping the Pain

God in His three Persons is almighty and all powerful. At any time throughout His torture, Christ could have said, “Enough!” and halted the process.

He could also have revealed Himself as the transfigured Christ – with all wounds healed.  Can you imagine how terrified and in awe of Him the Jews and Romans would have been had He done that?

Instead he endured being whipped repeatedly with steel tips, spat upon, hit, jeered at and mocked. He was clothed in a purple cloak which was then ripped off His back after the blood from His scourging had dried on the material.

Thorns were pressed into His head and He was forced to carry His own heavy cross, when he had no energy left. When had he last eaten or drunk? At the Passover meal with the Apostles. That was hours ago.  

The cross dug into his shoulder, inflicting even more pain, well before he was nailed to it and hoisted, naked, for all to sneer at while he took three hours to die of suffocation.

And at any point during this excruciating ordeal, He could have said, “Stop!”

But He didn’t.

Doesn’t that give us pause for thought? Do any of us love even one person enough to go through such agony for them, let alone the whole of flawed humanity?

It takes unbelievable humility to act as if you have no power over your persecutors.

That’s real love.

Makes one think, doesn’t it? 

He Descended into Hell for Us

I've often wondered what the phrase in the Creed ‘He descended into Hell’ means.

Hell is separation from God. No one can enter communion with God in Heaven if he or she is not pure. We must be purged in Purgatory of our remaining impurities before we can enter Heaven.

Christ took on all the sins of the world – past, present and future – when He let Himself be crucified. He became impure. For the first, last and only time, He was separated from God.

And not because of anything He had done wrong. Completely pure, He became impure out of love for us. He’d been one with the Father from the beginning of time, and now, because He wanted to save us, He agreed to be separated from His Father.

No wonder he cried out, “My God, why hast thou forsaken me?” The agony of being split from the Trinity must have been far worse than any physical pain. Even though He knew it was temporary and necessary to conquer death, it was going to be – well, Hell for Him.

And when we realize that He was fully aware that this horrible moment of separation was imminent, the Agony in the Garden takes on an added dimension, doesn’t it?

Yet Jesus did this out of love for us.

Another beautiful truth.        

Saved or Not?

He knew already in the Garden of Gethsemane just how many souls His sacrifice would save. He also knew the exact number of those who would spurn His sacrifice and descend into Hell.

Those latter souls will have refused to believe in God during their lifetime, only to discover His existence when they die. At the very moment when they believe in Him, they will be separated from Him.

Just when they desire Him above all things, it will be too late. They will never be with Him in Heaven. 

Imagine how the knowledge of these truths increased Christ’s agony! We can readily sympathize with His prayers to have the chalice removed from His lips. 

Yet He still went through His Passion out of love for us all. Even if only a few of us make it through that narrow door, Christ wanted to show us just how much He cared about every single human being, by dying a horrible death to give us all a chance to be saved.

Isn’t that another beautiful truth?  

So how are we going to show Him our appreciation of what He went through ‘for us men and for our salvation’?

When I recite the Rosary, my mind sometimes wanders off in totally unrelated directions. Sure enough, this Friday, while I was praying the first decade – the Agony in the Garden – my thoughts drifted to secular topics, which had nothing to do with Christ's  anguished beads of blood-sweat.

I looked for a new aspect of the event to get me back on track.

It occurred to me that Christ had just washed the feet of the man who - any moment now - would enter the garden and betray Him.

How did that feel?

How Did He Do It?!
Would we have washed Judas’ feet? Would we have performed such a humiliating task for the very person we already knew was going to hand us over to be scourged, hit, spat on, have thorns stuck into our head, and be forced to carry a heavy cross - so we could be attached to it with big nails driven through our hands and feet?

That’s what makes Jesus’ act of humility even more amazing. Not only was He performing a slave’s job for His followers. He already knew Judas was going to betray Him - “And you are clean, though not every one of you” (v. 10) - yet Jesus washed his feet, too! That demanded enormous love.

The article Jesus Washes His Disciples’ Feet reads: “For the love that is evident in the laying down of life at the crucifixion is also demonstrated in the laying down of life in humble service in the footwashing.”

Humble Re-enactment
On Maundy Thursday we witness the commemoration of that night as the priest washes the feet of twelve parishioners. And I always wonder why those particular twelve are chosen? What are the criteria for having your feet washed in church? (Thankfully I’ll never qualify - no one wants to see my sorry toes!)

One year our pastor called up twelve young men who’d expressed an interest in the priesthood. That was beautiful, and I appreciated the worthiness of those parishioners to be recognized in public.

But another priest recounted how he’d desperately not wanted to wash the feet of a particular church member, because the man was openly and loudly critical of him. For that very reason the priest’s spiritual director ordered him to include that man in the Maundy Thursday line-up.

It was very hard - humiliating and humbling – but the priest obeyed and bathed his enemy’s feet.

Now that's impressive!


Christ’s humility that night – washing all twelve disciples’ feet when He was aware that one of them would soon double-cross Him – is certainly something to recall when reciting the Agony in the Garden decade on the Rosary.

Christ offers us salvation: are we smart (and humble) enough to accept it?

Sweating Blood

We as Christians are very familiar with the story of Christ sweating blood in the garden of Gesthemane. Wikipedia describes hematidrosis as ‘a very rare condition in which a human sweats blood,’ for example under the extreme stress of facing his or her own death.
 
Not only did Christ know that His torture and death were imminent, but He was fully aware of what he would go through. Being God, He had intimate knowledge of what He was about to endure.

We can well understand that Christ seated blood over His impending physical suffering.

Another Kind of Agony

But there was another powerful reason for His anguish.

Many souls would be saved through His Passion and death: this He knew. But what about the agony caused Him by the many others who would reject His incredible sacrifice, and refuse to be saved?

Christ sweated drops of blood thanks also to these ingrates, the 'great multitude of reprobates who would be damned for their sins.'* Their stubborn pride would prevent them from seeing their sinfulness and need of a Savior.

Rather than be grateful to Christ for enduring a horrible death to save their souls, ‘those hopeless, lost and unfortunate sinners’ would throw His sacrifice back in His face.

*Taken from the Fifth Prayer of the St. Bridget Prayers. http://www.preces-latinae.org/thesaurus/Filius/StBrigid.html

Heroism & Rejection

It’s hard enough to do something heroic when you know it'll be appreciated.
 
But how about undergoing torture for people who will laugh at what you’ve done for them? Who are too hard-hearted and self-absorbed to realize that you are offering them the supreme gift of a permanent place in Heaven?
 
Try enduring horrific suffering for souls who will exercise their free will to reject you, refuse everlasting life and instead choose eternal damnation!

Maybe knowing this was the hardest part of the Christ’s Agony in the Garden?

He was concerned with much more than physical torture.
 
Don’t let us be among the ‘lost and unfortunate sinners’ who increase Our Savior’s agony.  Instead, let's gratefully accept the precious gift of mercy and forgiveness He offers us.