From the Gospel according to Luke (22:39-44)
Jesus went out as usual to the Mount of Olives, and His disciples followed Him. On reaching the place, He said to them, “Pray that you will not fall into temptation.” He withdrew about a stone’s throw beyond them, knelt down and prayed, saying “Father, if you are willing, take this cup from me; yet not my will, but yours be done.” An angel from Heaven appeared to Him and strengthened Him. And being in anguish, He prayed more earnestly, and His sweat was like drops of blood falling to the ground.
On that night of a full moon, amid the branches of olive trees, Jesus is consumed with grief and feels choked by it. He turns to His disciples only to find them asleep; they are unable to stay awake as promised. Soon Judah will arrive and with him the company of soldiers to take Jesus away, soldiers of a people which up to five days before had hailed Jesus as their King. They had welcomed Him with palms as a sign of triumph, and now, as if He were a thief, they come with swords and clubs.
His soul is sorrowful even unto death. What does this mean? Death is a deep chasm; the sorrow that Jesus experiences has dug it to the very bottom. The Lord is before the fulfillment of his entire life. The time has come to accomplish the greatest act of love ever imagined.
Jesus finds Himself in the middle of two abysses: one is the dark abyss of death that takes away the ground from under one’s feet: “You’ll never make it, give up your ideals. Don’t you see how much evil abides in men’s hearts? Do you really think that your sacrifice will restore their lives? Man is destined to die! He can live very well without his God.” Above Jesus’ head is the abyss of infinite love of the Father that cries out to His Heart: “My Son, show My children how much I love them, offer Your life for their sake. I promised them eternal love, so bring My promise to fulfillment. The blood You shed for them will be the seal of My promise. Man is destined to live!”
Everything that the Father asks, the Son does. It has always been that way, because each one of God’s requests is pure love. But how difficult it is! The effort of the "fiat voluntas tua" makes Jesus sweat blood. The tension is such that the capillaries break and the blood mingles with the sweat. That sweat is red as is His pain, and it falls to the ground in tiny drops. Other more dense droplets remain adhered to Jesus’ skin and form clots that fall to the ground like rubies. These are the precious pearls created by His love. A shellfish forms a pearl when a foreign body enters, and not being able to reject the object envelopes it with a precious substance that slowly creates so much beauty. So it is with Jesus, and so it is for us with our sins. Now Jesus is bearing the burden for both, but our sins have nothing to do with Him, instead they have to do with us. What must be done then? Jesus sweats blood for us and every drop envelops and transforms us. Each drop of blood is a reaction to our sin that instead of separating us from Him fills us with love. What is the end result? A precious pearl which is our life freed from sin.
The blood that Jesus sweat in the garden comes from the wounds of His love for creatures.
One day, Jesus confides to Luisa that when the Divinity cast out the creature, It remained as if wounded by Its same love, and out of love for the creature made Him come from Heaven upon earth, cry and shed blood.
Luisa’s soul, like all the souls who live in the Divine Will, feels this wound as if it were her own. She cries and prays and would suffer all to rescue the poor creature and for this wound of love not to suffer further blows caused by the offenses of creatures. These tears, prayers, pains, and reparations alleviate Jesus’ wound and descend upon His breast like many shining gems that Jesus boasts and holds onto to show the Father in order to bend Him to compassion toward creatures.
Between these souls and Jesus a divine vein rises and descends, which consumes their human blood. The more the soul takes part in His wound and very same life, the more this vein expands, so much as to form other “Christs”. And Jesus continues repeating to the Father: “I am in Heaven, but there are other Christs on earth who are wounded with My same wound, who cry as I do, who suffer, who pray, etc. That is why We must pour out Our mercies over the earth”.
Only those who live in His Volition, who experience His wound resemble Jesus on earth and will be like Him in Heaven by taking part of the same glory of His Humanity.
Jesus’ soul is sorrowful unto death, but He has a promise to keep and a sacrifice to make. He thinks of the pain caused by the physical sufferings He has yet to endure. But Jesus is not alone in suffering; his Mother carries the cross with Him. She suffers in her soul that which Jesus suffers in His body and soul. This suffering burns inside more than the same wounds that would soon martyrize His body. Certainly, Jesus does not want His mother to suffer so, but even this is the price to pay for our sins: the suffering that our loved ones have to endure because of us. Every pain is a drop that falls, a ruby that renders precious His offer of love. But the most atrocious suffering is another; in those hours of agony Jesus experiences the abandonment of the Father. This is the worst pain that a person can experience: to feel deprived of God, without the love of the Father, without the comforting certainty of His Mercy. This pain has a terrible name in just thinking about it: hell!
How far does Jesus’ love go for us? Kneeling among the stones, Jesus thinks back on His life. Now is the time when everything that He has ever lived for finds fulfillment. Every thought chokes Him and makes His heart ache, but His reaction is always the same; He envelops us with His Mercy and creates drops of blood around our sins.
God has decided to leave His throne of glory to become human like us. He chose to be born in a manger and glorified by poor shepherds and the outcast who lived with animals and like animals. He chose to live among the people of a humble village. He spoke with mercy and truth to the doctors of the Law, receiving in return only their rejection and obstinacy. He left wounds, invigorated hearts, gave hope, resurrected the dead; He had so much patience with his disciples who, not understanding, left Him. And even now, a few hours before finding Himself in the Garden of Olives, with His twelve apostles He performs gestures so exquisite as the intensity of His love, so difficult to understand as they were fundamental to imitate.
There was also Judas at that last supper, and Jesus had washed the feet of all His disciples. But what is heart-breaking is the fact that He not only washed the feet of Peter, John and the others, who even if amid a thousand imperfections and falls had always served and loved Him, but He also washed the feet of Judas! Yet, Jesus had always known that Judas was different, that his heart was full of pride and lust. He knew that Judas was so fragile in the face of sin and that it was easy for him to be prey to deceit. Then why did Jesus want Judas to be with Him? If it were up to us, we would have tried to avoid every possible danger. Jesus, instead, welcomes Judas in the home, has him sit at table with Him and offers him His favorite morsel. Why doesn’t Jesus protect Himself? Why did Jesus let a man’s sin hurt him in such a deadly way? Because Jesus’ love is truly without measure! He truly loves each one of us and always forgives us. This isn’t nonsense, but rather the infinite truth of God’s Mercy. Indeed, Jesus came to save sinners; and if Judas is offered a chance, always, even to the very end, then it can be the same for us!
The pains suffered by Jesus, dripping with blood, are the pains that His Divine Will had to suffer being trapped in the human will of creatures; these pains are unspeakable and inconceivable to human nature. The Divine Will is in all creatures but exists in the nightmare of a terrible and heartbreaking agony, because instead of letting the Divine Will rule over them to let Its life unfold, creatures keep It suppressed without freedom to act, breathe, or pulsate. Consequently, it is the human will that acts, breathes freely and pulsates as it wants, whereas God’s Will is left only to serve and to contribute to their acts and remain inside agonizing and suffocated under the death rattle of a centuries’ long agony. The Divine Will thrashes about in the creature in the nightmare of an agony. Its struggles are felt in the feelings of a guilty conscience, in disappointments, crosses, the weariness of life and everything that is annoying to creatures, and rightfully so because if the creature keeps the Divine Will crucified and always under the rattle of agony, Its clashes will send reminders, not being able to do otherwise, because It does not dominate them. Who knows, though, if coming to their senses in seeing the misery that their ill will brings creatures would allow It to breathe a little and find respite from Its anguish. The Divine Will’s agony was so painful that Jesus willed to suffer It in the Garden of Gethsemane. He came to the point of seeking help from the Apostles themselves, but did not receive any. The spasms were such that He sweat live blood, and feeling Himself succumb under the enormous weight of such a long and terrible agony of His Divine Will He invoked the Heavenly Father to help him, saying: “Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from Me.”
In all the other pains of His Passion, as atrocious as they were, He never said: "If possible, let this pain pass". On the contrary, while on the cross He cried out: "I thirst”. In this agonized suffering of the Supreme Will Jesus felt all the weight of such a long agony, all the death throes of a Divine Will in anguish that suffers in the human generations. How much pain! There is no pain that can equal it.
But the 'Supreme Fiat' wants to be set free; It is tired and wants, at any cost, to be released from this agony. The Divine Will wants to make creatures feel that It lives in them, but does not want to remain in anguish any longer; It wants freedom, sovereignty and to fulfill Its life in them.
Jesus wants to make everyone feel His tremendous agony, the continuous death rattle, the lethargy into which they place His Will when they want to do their own will and not God’s Will. They don’t want It to rule, neither do they want to know It.
It is for this very reason that Jesus, struggling, desires to break the dams, to make known that if creatures do not want to know and receive It out of love, then they will come to know It by way of justice. The Divine Will is tired of this centuries’ long agony; It wants to be freed and so prepares Itself in two ways: the first is the triumphant way, which is Its knowledge, Its wonders, and all the good that the reign of the 'Supreme Fiat' brings; the second is the way of justice, for those who do not want to know It the triumphant way. Therefore, it is up to creatures to decide how they wish to receive the Divine Will.
Our sin brings us closer to Judas, who does not understand Jesus’ words and the meaning of the gestures He performed for him. Our sin makes us resemble Peter, who denies Jesus, and the disciples who desert Him. Our sin makes us similar to his apostles, who sleep from the weariness of just being human. The Blood shed in the Garden of Olives is the fatigue Jesus felt in carrying the weight of our sins and it is His offering of love for us. With this ring of precious gems, like the drops of Blood shed in the garden, Jesus promises us eternal love. We will not be alone anymore, because He will always take care of us. He has given us the proof!
Oh Son of God,
May the Blood you sweat in Gethsemane
inspire in us a hatred for sin,
the only true evil that deprives us of Your love
and saddens our lives.