Fifteenth Day.
In the terrible agony of Our Lord in the Garden of Gethsemani, the Lord saw all the sins of mankind. He sees the injustice of man in comparison to the eternal justice of God. He beholds their ingratitude to His everlasting love, their obduracy against the sweet mercy of God. This leprosy of sin has been laid on the Lord, so that, as the Psalmist says: “The confusion of my face hath covered me.”—Ps. xliii. 16. He is filled with the confusion of shame, because sin is so horrible. His soul is overwhelmed with bitterness, because sin is so full of malice and insult to God. Thus covered with our shame, He appears before His heavenly Father, prone on His face on the ground. The heavenly Father does not recognize His Son; Jesus prays, but is not heard. The justice of God casts Him away. He begs the Father for help, but He will not bend His ear to the supplication of His Son. Jesus waits for consolation, but instead receives His death sentence. He must drink the cup of sorrow to the very dregs.
Prayer.
Look down upon me, good and gentle Jesus, etc., etc.
Sixteenth Day.
The Lord bade His disciples watch and pray, but hardly has He left them to themselves than they fall asleep. Judas is not asleep; he is actively engaged in getting his company together, giving them instructions how to proceed, so that they might elude the power of the Lord. But the disciples sleep, and are careless of the Lord's interests. No wonder that the indifference of the disciples gave Him an additional pang. We, too, are the disciples of the Lord. Why do we sleep while the enemy is sowing the seed of error and irreligion? What effect has the instructions, the counsels of the divine Master, had upon us? They are all forgotten, and we look to our own comfort and to our pleasures; we go after the world, money and honors, but think little of God. Let us then watch and pray; the spirit is indeed willing, but the flesh is weak. The soul would act otherwise, if the body had not been allowed an almost limitless freedom while the soul is dying of spiritual starvation. Give your soul an opportunity to rise above the low necessities of the body, and the spirit will then be strong to compel the body to obey.
Prayer.
Look down upon me, good and gentle Jesus, etc., etc.