Thoughts on the Patient Endurance of Sorrows and Sufferings
SYMPATHY
In the Garden of Olives at His agony our Lord said:
"My soul is sorrowful even unto death";and so say those in pain and desolation. Our Blessed Saviour felt what He was undergoing very keenly - the loneliness, the prospect of pain; and how did He act?
First of all, He gave full vent to His pent-up feelings. He allowed the torrent of grief to flow and to find expression in earnest prayer to His heavenly Father.
Not to everyone did He thus act and speak, not even to all His disciples, but only to His Father and to the selected three: Peter, James and John.
He shed tears, and the blood burst through his veins. In the secluded grotto of the garden in private, with His friends, He wept; in public He did not weep. He did not speak of His pain of mind and body. The sick may learn something here.
It is often good and meritorious in public to hide and master one's feelings, and say little or nothing of one's pain; but not always so in private in prayer with God, or in quiet moments with those whom God has sent us as helpers, whose task and joy it is to bear at least a portion of our burden. Then, like our Lord, we do well to let go the flood-gates, and to receive gladly the heaven-sent relief of another's sympathy. Then may our tears flow freely, and we are right to speak of "our chalice" and point out its bitterness, for thus we acquire fresh strength and courage to drink it with joy and resignation.
But more. Our Lord at His Agony looked for and desired sympathy, not from all, but from some.
"Stay with Me; watch with Me.... Could you not watch one hour with Me?"He said, as He found His disciples sleeping. What a beautiful appeal is this from the Sacred Heart, "looking for one to comfort," yet finding none. Had there been but one, how gladly would our Lord have accepted his offering, even as He later listened eagerly to the Angel's words of comfort. "Wherefore with those whom God wills you to lean upon - your confessor, your friends - lay aside all reserve, for "life is a warfare," and we need the help and sympathy of others in times of pain and difficulty. Thus to act is not only a privilege but a duty, an example and proof of which is given us by our Lord in the Garden of Olives.
Rejoice and be glad that in your pain you have some to comfort you; accept their sympathy as a gift from the hand of God, and use it wiseiy and well.
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Compiled and Edited by Rev. F. X. Lasance
Author of "My Prayerbook," etc.
1937, Benziger Brothers
Printers to the Holy Apostolic See
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