Tuesday, March 03, 2009


SEVENTH MEDITATION FOR LENT

"My soul is sorrowful even unto death. Stay you here and watch with me." And he cometh to his disciples and findeth them asleep. And he saith to Peter: "What? Could you not watch one hour with me?" (Matt. 26: 38, 40)

A Person must be of a very harsh and unfeeling nature, if he remains calm and unconcerned when he sees his friend afflicted with great calamity and plunged into sadness; but how painful is not this indifference to the friend thus afflicted? Jesus had taken only three of His Apostles into the Garden of Agony; the pitiable state to which He was reduced could not make them watch even one hour with Him. Jesus Christ is treated in the Blessed Sacrament with coldness and contempt by the majority of men; how few of those who make profession of being His followers and of loving Him are touched by these outrages! Jesus Christ is incessantly being delivered into the hands of His greatest enemies, but how few even of those who claim to be faithful to Him come to the foot of the altar to keep Him company, and to how many people could Jesus Christ make the reproach: "Could you not watch one hour with Me?" What could I answer, O Lord, I who lose so many hours in vain assemblies and in vain amusements?

[From 'The Devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus' by Fr. John Croiset, SJ]

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