ON THE AGONY OF JESUS IN THE GARDEN

There have been times in my life as a Catholic where I experienced Spiritual Joy.   In my early days it was at those wonderful parish retreats when after a week of talks almost the whole parish had gone to Confession filled with the inspiration they had been given.     In later life I had the joy of going on pilgrimages and coming back ready to continue my life as a saint.   The feelings never lasted very long I am sorry to say,  and I began to look forward to my next spiritual drive.   In this I do not think I am so different from most other Catholics, O yes we want to be saints but it does take quite an effort  and we quickly go back to being sinners and trying to justify ourselves by going to Church on a Sunday where we excuse our sins by saying God is Love and  that all is well and our sins do not matter.

I have had a different experience lately that really woke me up.   During a visit to the Pilgrim Statue of Our Lady of Fatima I had a moment of enlightenment.   I compared it in a previous post to sudeenly tuning an old valve radio to the very difficult spot where the distractions of other programmes were at a minimum or had disappeared, and the whole call of Our Lady was clear to me and rang out with a clarity I had never experienced.   I came home with my spiritual experience and somehow I knew that  I really had to take it seriously.   If I was going to pray for the conversion of sinners then I had to be someone worthy of the graces that would come their way from Mary.   It was not just my soul that was at stake but the souls of others.    I had to take up my cross and turn to Mary when I was tempted.   Gradually it got very difficult and I realised I had to give up a lot of worldly interests to keep my mind on what was after all my vocation as a lay Catholic.   I had a great interest in politics so that had to go and I now watch very few political programmes and do not even give my opinions on my Facebook page, though to be honest I do slip now and again.   I have many distractions when saying the Rosary but I am trying and that is  all Mary wants of me.   The new life is not easy and any illusions that I am a saint has totally gone..

Last Friday at Adoration I experienced what could only be called a Satanic attack.    I started thinking of what a useless person I was to believe I could achieve anything.    My sins of the past and there were very serious ones from my youth flooded my mind.   These brought with them all the temptations that I had been subjected to then.   Calling on Mary did not bring help and I was almost breaking out  in a sweat.    Then Adoration was over and the agony was gone.   Yes, it was an agony and later I reflected on the Agony of Jesus in the garden.    Unlike my little mission Jesus had the salvation of the world in his mind.   As he prayed I am sure Satan came to him and said  "Come on Jesus, do you really think you can rescue these human beings?   Even in this Church of yours  very few will want to suffer for you.   They will never build your Kingdom so call off this Crucifixion of yours".  And looking at the evidence through the centuries until we arrive at the unchristian world of today perhaps the Devil had a  point.  The real agony  that so many would not listen that Jesus really did make Jesus feel helpless   I can well understand his sweating blood when he saw the truth..   But he took courage in  that even allowing for this there would still be millions saved.   To those who are trying to be good Satan will always whisper lies.     We must be prepared like Jesus to take up our Cross whatever lies ahead and however useless we are made to feel

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Translation of Luke 1: 28 in the Latin Vulgate by St Jerome.

.......et ingressus angelus ad eam dixit have gratia plena Dominus tecum benedicta tu in mulieribus..... If indeed we are to have a Year of the Bible and indeed praise St Jerome, as indeed he deserves to be praised, for translating the texts approved by the Church into Latin, the language of the Mass, then surely we should check what the Latin says according to St Jerome before we rush into translating into other languages.    In this case translating  from the Gospel of Luke, St Jerome wrote the above, which translates  "..and entering the angel said to her 'Hail full of grace the Lord is with you and blessed are you among women".   Now you do not have to be a scholar to realise that this means much more than 'highly favoured'.   So why I ask myself does the translation we read in our Catholic Church at the gospel read 'highly favoured' rather than 'full of grace'  Why is this important?   Because if she was born 'full of grace' t
Read more

FAIR AS THE MOON, BRIGHT AS THE SUN, TERRIBLE AS AN ARMY SET IN BATTLE ARRAY

'Who is she that comes forth as the morning rising, fair as the moon, bright as the sun, terrible as an army set in battle array'. The above quote will be familiar to only a few Catholics today,   It was once on the lips of members of the Legion of Mary which was present in many parishes.    Fair as the moon and bright as the sun certainly describes Our Lady of Fatima but who exactly is meant by 'terrible as an army set in battle array?'   Certainly Our Lady appeared to ask us to pray for the conversion of sinners many of who were going to Hell for their sins as forewarned by her Son Jesus when he preachedHis Gospel.  Often we are trying and feel we are succeeding in living good lives when suddenly everything goes wrong  Like St Paul we often do the things we do not want to do rather than those that we want to do.   It is because we are involved in a war between Good and Evil and we are the children of Mary that the red Dragon wishes to devour in Revelations 12    We
Read more

The meaning of 'virgo Immaculata'

Image
As you will see from the stained glass window the name given to the image is Virgo Immaculata.   Mary was the virgin who remained sinless and spotless.  Yes she would have been tempted by Satan, but as the image shows she kept close to God in prayer and all the wiles of Satan, the forbidden fruit he offered, depictdd by the apple, ended up stuck in his throat while the right foot of Mary crushed his head. "I will put enmity between Thee and the woman and between thy seed and her seed", God tole the serpent in Genesis   Satan was no match for Jesus who was God made Man but he had overcome a mere mortal before in Eve, What a triumph it would have been to destroy she whom Jesus loved above al others - his mother.   But Mary kept close to Jesus and to God, the new Eve, and mother of the new children that the death of Jesus brought into being.    And as Revelations 12 tells us having failed to destroy the birth of Jesus Satan  went after her other children - us.       When
Read more