Monday after Quinquagesima: Why our Lord did not take with Him eight of His disciples

Contemplate your Redeemer, my soul, at the time when, together with His apostles, He reached the Garden of Olives. Darkness wraps the face of the earth, but a bright moon illumines the heavens. Jesus is very sorrowful; He announces to His dismayed disciples the dangers impending over them. Selecting three whom He will take with Him into the interior of the Garden, to the other eight He says: "Sit you here, till I go yonder and pray." (St. Matt. xxvi. 36.) It is a melancholy scene that is here presented to view. Already the fear and anguish of His Passion have invaded our Lord's soul, when He parts from the disciples, who see Him go with feelings of consternation and vague forebodings of evil.

1st. Consider why Our Lord commenced His Passion in a garden. For this reason: Because it was His will to recover in a garden what had been lost in a garden, the salvation and eternal happiness of mankind. In the Garden of Eden Adam stretched out his hands to the forbidden fruit, and thereby brought himself and all his posterity into the bondage of the devil; for that cause our Lord stretches out His hands in the Garden of Olives to yield Himself as a captive to the myrmidons of the devil and thereby accomplish our redemption. In the Garden of Eden through his pride and prevarication Adam caused his own fall and that of the whole human race, and for that cause Jesus casts Himself on to the ground, into the dust in the Garden of Olives, in order by His humility to raise us who have fallen so low. Finally Jesus wills to begin in the garden that conflict whereby the glorious portals of the garden of paradise, long closed against us, were to be reopened; through His sufferings in the garden He, the sinless One, will purchase for us admittance into that celestial garden from which sinful concupiscence has excluded us. Marvel at and admire the divine wisdom, and learn hence that wherein you have sinned, therein you must do penance.

2d. Consider that it was out of consideration for their frailty that our Lord did not permit the eight apostles to accompany Him into the garden. He knew that their faith was not as strong and steadfast as that of the other apostles. It might easily have happened that the sight of their Master trembling, oppressed by fear and sadness, might have been to them an occasion of scandal, or even of falling, that they might have been led to doubt His divinity. Our Lord in His mercy desires to avoid this. Learn hence, my soul, to exercise patience and forbearance towards the weaker brethren. Above all take heed lest you give them cause to take scandal. Do not, if you are a Superior, require too much of them; learn of Jesus to distinguish between the strong and the weak, the perfect and the imperfect. And if you are a subordinate, see in like manner that you are patient with your weaker brethren; do not take umbrage if exceptions are made in their favor, if they are spared, or are permitted to do what is forbidden to others. You are not scandalized because sick people receive Holy Communion in their beds, while those who are whole have to receive it in the church and on their knees; well, in other things make the same wise distinction between the perfect and the imperfect, and you will spare yourself and others much cause for regret both in time and in eternity.

3d. Consider also that our Lord left the eight apostles outside the garden for the purpose of trying their patience. The stronger disciples have to be approved by their fortitude in conflict, the weaker by their patience; and if our Lord excludes them from participation in the mysteries of His Passion, if He shows less confidence in them than in the other greater apostles, they ought to accept this with humility, without feelings of envy or ill will. How necessary it is for you, my soul, to take example by our Lord's disciples in this respect. If you perceive that God has endowed your brother with more talents than He has bestowed on you, that He has lavished on him greater favors than on you, that He destines him for higher things than He destines you, bear this patiently, acquiesce in it without jealousy; say not only with your lips but in the sincerity of your heart that you know yourself to be unworthy of similar privileges, and then you will by your humility be equally acceptable in God's sight. And if you see your Superior appointing others to posts, employing them in functions from which you are excluded, bear this patiently; do not envy your brethren. Remember that St. Peter, whom our Lord took with Him into the garden, afterwards fell, while his brother Andrew, who was left outside, did not prevaricate; and although he did not enjoy the same privilege as St. James, he ranks as high as this apostle, who was one of the three chosen to accompany our Lord. Whether you have much or little, that much or little is not your own; it is God's gift.