“And being in anguish, He prayed more earnestly, and His sweat was like drops of blood falling to the ground.” (Luke 22:44).
I was speaking with a dear friend the other day who was suffering dreadfully due to a terrible time in her life and with her husband. As we were talking, she asked me – broken-heartedly – “What is the point? I do not even know what my purpose is in all of this…”
And it fascinated me that I knew the answer to her question so clearly, when she – who was being held so closely by God in that very moment – could not see the answer staring her right in the face…
The answer to that question, “What is the point?” is SANCTITY… That is the point. Sanctification…
It is as simple as that. The point of having to endure this terrible time in her life and her marriage is to pray for the sanctification of her husband’s soul, and – through her own suffering during this trial – to purify and sanctify herself through the offering of this sacrifice for love of God.
And when I explained this to her, she was a little surprised. After all, it seemed to her that what she was experiencing was so human, so real and raw that it could not possibly be connected to God.
But that is another misconception. You see, Christ suffered the agony in the Garden of Gethsemene in His Human nature as well as in His Divine nature and this suffering was so profound and important that we commemorate this agony in the first sorrowful mystery of the Most Blessed Rosary.
And what does that agony mean? How did it look? Did it look Godly? Well… No. Not at all. It did not look like a DIVINE suffering. It looked HUMAN. It looked like sweat and blood and loneliness and exhaustion. It looked like deep and profound sorrow…
“‘Father, if You are willing, take this cup from Me; yet not My will, but Yours be done.’ An angel from heaven appeared to Him and strengthened Him. And being in anguish, He prayed more earnestly, and His sweat was like drops of blood falling to the ground.” (Luke 22:42-44).
In other words, when Christ suffered in the Garden of Gethsemane, he suffered in a HUMAN way. It was His human nature that suffered as much as His Divine nature. And what does that mean? Well, it means that He who is God, felt very far away from God at that time. After all, in the Garden of Gethsemane, Christ suffered alone as the ONLY person of the Holy Trinity to bear the weight of sin. The other Blessed Persons of the Most Holy Trinity were NOT with Him in the Garden and that was the FIRST time in all of creation and all of eternity that He was alone. And his isolation lasted until the moment of the resurrection. And it is for THAT reason that the angels came to comfort Him in the Garden… It was because He felt alone and isolated from God. And for Christ – who is God – the unnaturalness of this state of separation from the other Holy Persons of the Trinity amplified the pain in a way that my miserable human soul could never fathom…
And this means, that when Christ suffered in that Garden, He felt – in a magnified way – what my dear friend is feeling now... He felt real HUMAN physical pain and anguish caused by His real spiritual and emotional pain.
And this is how it felt for all the Saints too. When Saint Francis of Assisi and Saint Padre Pio received the stigmata, it did not feel Divine. It felt like a real human pain. When Saint Faustina died slowly (being misunderstood by the other nuns in her community) it did not feel divine, it felt like real human pain – both physical and spiritual.
And I have been thinking about this today as I pray for peace and strength for my friend… Because it takes great faith to see the HUMAN pain as evidence of the DIVINE… And great faith is what she needs… After all... That is the whole point!
For with prayer, I stand on Holy Ground where everything is clear. Here. At the Foot of the Cross.
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