O Jesus, how many generous souls wounded by this complaint have kept You company in the Garden, sharing Your bitterness and Your mortal anguish…. Padre Pio, meditating on our Lord’s agony, also prayed: And so even now, in a wondrous yet true manner, we can and ought to console that Most Sacred Heart which is continually wounded by the sins of thankless men, since – as we also read in the sacred liturgy – Christ Himself, by the mouth of the Psalmist complains that He is forsaken by His friends: “My Heart hath expected reproach and misery, and I looked for one that would grieve together with me, but there was none: and for one that would comfort me, and I found none” (Psalm 118:21).
22:43), in order that His Heart, oppressed with weariness and anguish, might find consolation. If, because of our sins also which were as yet in the future, but were foreseen, the soul of Christ became sorrowful unto death, it cannot be doubted that then, too, already He derived somewhat of a solace from our reparation, which was likewise foreseen, when “there appeared to Him an angel from heaven” (Lk. Pope Pius XI wrote in his encyclical letter, Miserentissimus Redemptor: Jesus was strengthened not only by the angel, but also by all those generous souls foreseen by Him who, moved by His sorrowful complaint, have kept and continue to keep Him company in the Garden of Olives, watching and sharing His bitterness and mortal anguish. …And now the Church still seeks to recover that hour in Gethsemane-the hour lost by Peter, James and John-so as to compensate for the Master’s lack of companionship which increased His soul’s suffering. In one way the Church still hears these same words: the reproach addressed to the three Apostles is accepted by the Church as if it were addressed to herself, and she tries to fill the gap left by that lost hour when Jesus remained completely alone in Gethsemane. …a reproach of concern to every disciple of Christ. Jesus asked them sadly, “Could you not watch one hour with Me?” Karol Wojtyla (Pope John Paul II), commenting on the carelessness of the three Apostles, said that these words of Jesus are: An angel was sent to Jesus in His agony to strengthen Him as He bore the weight of the world’s sins, while the three Apostles slept.
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