June 23 — The Sacred Heart at Gethsemane.

The Sacred Heart at Gethsemane.

1. During Our Lord’s Sacred Agony in the Garden of Gethsemane, His mental desolation and distress seem to have been more intense, more crushing, than at any subsequent part of His Sacred Passion, saving only when on the Cross He cried: “My God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken Me?” During the rest of the Passion He seemed almost to rejoice, but in the Garden He was beaten down, full of terror and sadness, scarce able to endure, pale and haggard and ghastly under the agony of soul that overwhelmed Him. In your desolation think of the utter desolation of the Sacred Heart, and claim its sympathy for you.

2. Why was Our Lord at this time so shorn of His strength and courage? Because then He took upon Himself in detail the sins of the world. His Sacred Heart suffered for them the same blackness of desolation and distress as if they were His own. He voluntarily deprived Himself of every source of comfort, and allowed Himself to feel the effects of sin as none could feel them save one who saw the nature of sin as God sees it.

3. One of the lessons to be learned from the awful scene of Christ’s Agony is the effect of sin when given its full scope, and its power to destroy the beauty and the strength even of God made Man. If it could work such havoc in the Son of God, what must it do in us? If they do these things in the green tree, what shall be done in the dry?