Saint Matthew - Chapter 26
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| Could you not watch one hour with me? J-J Tissot |
And he cometh to his disciples, and findeth them asleep, and he saith to Peter: What? Could you not watch one hour with me?
And He cometh to His disciples and findeth them asleep, and saith unto Peter, What, could ye not watch with Me one hour? To gain some consolation, little though it were, and also as having care for His people; thus teaching bishops and pastors to do the like, and to break off prayer in order to visit them. They were sleeping for sorrow, and He speaks to Peter as the head of the rest, and as having so boldly professed his allegiance to Christ.
But observe how gently and tenderly He reproves them. He does not reproach them with their grand promises; but He merely says, “Could ye not?” Ye wished indeed to watch, but I attribute your sleep not to your will, but to your weakness: arouse yourselves, overcome your infirmity, shake off sleep.
Mystically: “He signified,” says S. Irenæus, “that His Passion is the awakening of sleepers.”
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| Valley of Jehoshaphat. J-J tissot |
Watch ye, and pray that ye enter not into temptation. The spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh weak.
Watch and pray, lest ye enter into temptation. Of denying and forsaking Me for fear of the Jews. If My dangers move you not, may your own do so. There hangs over you the great temptation of denying Me; watch and pray to overcome it. “The more spiritual a man is,” says Origen, “the more anxious should he be lest his great goodness should have a great fall.” Watchfulness and prayer are the great means of foreseeing and overcoming the arts of devils and men.
Enter into temptation. Be not ensnared, as birds in a net and fishes with a hook. Not to be tempted is often not in our own power, nor is it God’s will for us. He wills we should be tempted, to try our faith, to increase our virtue, and to crown our deserts. But we must not enter into temptation, so that it should occupy, possess, and rule over us. So Theophylact and S. Jerome.
The spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak. I know your readiness in spirit, but your weakness in the flesh. By the flesh is meant our natural feelings, which shrink from suffering and death. Pray, therefore, that your weak flesh may not enfeeble your spirit and compel it to deny Me; but may God by His grace so strengthen both your spirit and your flesh, that ye may not only be ready, but strong to overcome all adversities, so that for My sake ye may eagerly wish for death, and bravely endure it. “The more, therefore,” says S. Jerome, “we trust to the warmth of our feelings, the more let us fear for the weakness of the flesh.” Some understand (less suitably) by “spirit” the devil, by the “flesh” man. That is, the devil is powerful to tempt, man is feeble to resist. Origen, moreover, observes “the flesh of all is weak, but it is only the spirit of the saints which is ready to mortify the deeds of the flesh.” S. Mark adds, “And they knew not what to answer, for they were struck down by their grief, and oppressed with sleep, and had neither sense nor understanding.”
[42] Iterum secundo abiit, et oravit, dicens : Pater mi, si non potest hic calix transire nisi bibam illum, fiat voluntas tua.
Again the second time, he went and prayed, saying: My Father, if this chalice may not pass away, but I must drink it, thy will be done.
He went away again the second time, and prayed, saying, O My Father, if this cup may not pass away unless I drink it, Thy will be done. S. Mark says that He used the same words as before. But S. Matthew omitted the first part of the prayer as without efficacy or meaning, and in order to insist on the latter part, in which the whole force of the passage consists, and set it forth for our imitation. For Christ absolutely wished and prayed to drink the cup of His Passion, which was decreed and destined for Him by the will of God. For He plainly and expressly asked that the will of God might be fulfilled in Him in and through all things.
[43] Et venit iterum, et invenit eos dormientes : erant enim oculi eorum gravati.
And he cometh again and findeth them sleeping: for their eyes were heavy.
And He came and found them asleep again, for their eyes were heavy. With sorrow and watching, and afterwards with sleep. “For,” says S. Chrysostom, “it was a wild night,” adding that “Christ did not reprove them, since their weakness was great.”
[44] Et relictis illis, iterum abiit, et oravit tertio, eumdem sermonem dicens.
And leaving them, he went again: and he prayed the third time, saying the selfsame word.
And He left them, and went away again, and prayed the third time, using the same words. 1st. To show the intensity of His sorrow; for, as S. Luke says, He sweated blood, and an angel comforted Him. But this was only when He prayed the third time, and not the first and second time, as Jansen maintains. 2nd. To teach us that if God hears us not in our first prayer, we should pray more frequently and fervently, till He hears us, and we obtain our request. Perseverance crowns the work, in prayer especially. And if Christ was not heard in His first and second prayer, what wonder if we are not heard at once? Let us persevere, and we shall gain the fruit of our prayer, strengthening, calming of sorrow, and power of mind to withstand and overcome our trials.
Symbolically:
1. Remigius says, “He prays thrice for the Apostles, and especially for Peter, who was about to deny Him thrice.”
2. Rabanus says “that He prayed thrice, in order that we should ask pardon for past sins, protection in present, and caution in future perils; that we should direct all our prayers to the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit; and that our body, soul, and spirit should be preserved blameless.”
3. S. Augustine (Quæst. Evang. in loc.) says, “It is not unreasonable to conclude that our Lord prayed thrice, in consequence of our temptation being threefold. For as the temptation of desire is threefold, so also is the temptation of fear. The fear of death is opposed to the desire of curiosity. For as in the one there is the desire of knowledge, so in the other is the fear of losing it. But to the desire for honour or praise there is opposed the fear of disgrace and contumely, and to the desire of pleasure there is opposed the fear of pain.”
[45] Tunc venit ad discipulos suos, et dicit illis : Dormite jam, et requiescite : ecce appropinquavit hora, et Filius hominis tradetur in manus peccatorum.
Then he cometh to his disciples, and saith to them: Sleep ye now and take your rest; behold the hour is at hand, and the Son of man shall be betrayed into the hands of sinners.
Then cometh He to His disciples, and saith unto them. Being after His third prayer strengthened by an angel, He resumed His former courage and spirit, and nobly composed Himself to meet His Passion (see on Luke 22:41).
Sleep on now, and take your rest. S. Chrysostom and others suppose that this was said ironically. This is no time for sleeping in our moment of extreme peril; rouse yourselves now, if ever.
But S. Augustine (de Cons. Evan. iii. 4), and Bede after him, suppose that Christ spoke seriously, and in compassion for them granted them a little longer rest. “Sleep on for the short time that remains till Judas arrives.”
Behold, the hour has arrived. Fixed from eternity by the Father, and decreed for My Passion and death.
And the Son of Man is betrayed, i.e., is about to be betrayed into the hands of sinners—sinners in a special manner, such as Judas and the Jews who were raging against Him. For there was no nation more wicked at that time, and therefore Christ had resolved to be born and die at that very time, in order that He might suffer more atrocious cruelties from such a people. His supreme goodness resolved to do battle with their consummate malice, in order that He might crush in them, as its head, the malice of all men, subject it to Himself, and convert it into goodness. The divine clemency and power of Christ were equally manifested in converting to Himself and making saints of those self-same wicked Jews, by Peter and the other apostles.
From The Life of Our Lord Jesus Christ, by J-J Tissot (1897)
After the first paroxysm of agony had subsided, Jesus went to His disciples to seek for some little consolation from them. They are his dearest friends; he will tell them all He is going through, and, when they have prayed together, the force of the temptation by which He is assailed will perhaps abate. The Saviour, therefore, approaches the place where He had left him, His garments in disorder, His hair still wet with the bloody sweat, bearing witness to the awful suffering He has gone through; His whole bearing betraying the dejection in which His agony has left Him. The Apostles, worn out with sorrow and fatigue, have fallen asleep upon the rock, Peter still armed with the two swords with which he had provided himself before starting for Gethsemane. Not longe ago we quoted the protestations of devotion made by the chief of the Apostles in the extremity of his zeal; his enthusiastic ardour had, however, been dampened by the sad prediction of Jesus, and he had come to the Garden not knowing what to think, but keeping concealed under his abayeh the two cutlasses or swords he had brought with him in case there should be a struggle. The silence and the terrors of this awful night have overcome him too now and he lies asleep, until he is roused by the gentle reproach of Jesus.
Totus tuus ego sum
Et omnia mea tua sunt;
Tecum semper tutus sum:
Ad Jesum per Mariam
Ad Jesum per Mariam
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