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In his audience of April 20, 2011, Benedict XVI offers a number of lessons on prayer based on the mystery of Jesus’ agony in the Garden of Gethsemane. This dramatic episode in Christ’s life takes place shortly before his arrest and betrayal by Judas. After his last meal, Jesus went to the Mount of Olives in Jerusalem to pray before suffering, knowing that he would die the next day.
Overcoming spiritual numbness
Benedict XVI begins with the behavior of the three disciples Jesus brought with him to support him in prayer. Peter, James, and John were unable to keep watch with their Master, and dozed off during that decisive hour.
The Holy Father likens their falling asleep to a problem that concerns the Church of all times. Applied to all believers, the three disciples’ failure reflects a lack of sensitivity to the power of evil in the world. This inability to accompany Jesus in prayer is also a lack of interest in God.
The Holy Father points to two reasons for our reluctance to pray: indifference to the problem of evil and forgetfulness of God.
“We are not aware of God — he would disturb us — hence we are naturally not aware of the force of evil and continue on the path of our own convenience,” he says. Far from being an opportunity to escape, prayer, on the contrary, encourages us to bear the worries of others.
Prayer as conversion of heart
Benedict XVI then reflects on the prayer of Jesus, who, while making his request to the Father to escape death, immediately corrects it by saying, “Not my will be done, but yours.”
The Pope notes that Jesus’ painful and onerous “yes” to the Father’s will changed human nature, because it put obedience in the place of our rebellions and “no’s.”
With this “yes,” Jesus invites us to enter into his filial movement of trust towards the Father, even in moments of darkness. My prayer must be an opportunity for conversion, so that I can join Jesus’ prayer in Gethsemane: “Father, not my will, but yours be done.” My prayer of petition requires a conversion of heart, so that I can show God my docility to his will and receive from him what is essential for my salvation.
In this way, prayer purifies my heart by relaying God’s plan for me. The mystery of Gethsemane teaches us that the salvation God asks us to seek in prayer does not necessarily take place in the ways we might have imagined. Praying sometimes means letting the Holy Spirit pray in us, because he knows better than we do what we need to ask God for.
Never again alone in our prayers
Finally, Benedict XVI notes that what happened in Gethsemane shows us Jesus as a person who stands in stark contrast to the wise men of antiquity. They tried to die in ataraxia, complete detachment and indifference in the face of death. Jesus, on the other hand, shows himself to be anguished and suffering. What a contrast with the dying Socrates!
Pope Benedict tells us the reason for this difference: Jesus’ mission was to bear our poverty, our suffering, in order to transform them. This is a precious lesson for us today: in moments of dereliction, extreme anguish, and doubt, we are no longer alone. Jesus is with us because the mystery of Gethsemane is actualized in these moments for our benefit.
Indeed, this eternal mystery reaches out to us in such a way that in our prayers, Jesus is present and prays with us, but also in us and for us. Jesus underwent this agony in order to bear our anguish and support our cries for help, which sometimes seem to be addressed to an empty heaven. This is why his prayer in Gethsemane represents a fundamental lesson on prayer.
It’s a lesson made all the more fundamental by the fact that, by joining our prayers to those of Jesus, we’ll be addressing God as he did himself in the Garden of Gethsemane: by calling him “Abba,” that is, “Father” in the most familiar sense of the word. Our prayer will then be as fully filial as that of the eternal Son.
And today we celebrate...