The Agony and the Angels: A Look at Contrasting Visions

When I reflect on Christ’s Agony in the Garden commemorated in the first Sorrowful Mystery of the Rosary the question often comes to my mind: what could make God sweat blood?  

In His Agony our Lord struggled to keep His composure at Gethsemane as His Passion drew near. That night His Humanity was sorely tested to fulfill his mission in His Divinity to die on a cross so that we might have Eternal Life. 

We read in the Gospels of how he asked His Father three times to let this bitter cup of sorrow pass from Him, while saying “but yet not my will but thine be done” (Lk 22:42) in loving, self-sacrificing obedience.

After his heart-wrenching appeal to His Heavenly Father, we read in Luke that

” There appeared to him an angel from heaven to strengthen him. And falling into an agony he prayed the more earnestly. And His sweat became as drops of blood running down upon the ground” (Lk 22:39, 41-44). 

In the book of her visions The Dolorous Passion of Our Lord Jesus Christ the 19th century German Mystic Anne Catherine Emmerich goes into harrowing detail about exactly what horrors our Lord Himself saw during his Agony in the Garden: centuries’ worth of truly frightening visions of all the sins of the world, along with much heartbreaking apostasy from His true Church.

Thus, in that brief hour or two, Jesus somehow saw the next 2000 years of everyone’s sins, including yours and mine, as both Sister Emmerich and the great Theologian and Doctor of the Church Saint Alphonsus Liquori have observed. 

Our Lord described the scene in riveting detail to another mystic Sister Josefa Menendez in the 1920’s, as related in the book Christ’s Appeal for Love. He told her, among other things: But so great was the anguish and so mortal the agony of My human nature under the strain and weight of so much guilt, that a bloody sweat poured from Me to the ground. O sinners who thus torture Me…will this Blood bring salvation and life, or will it be shed in vain for you? How can I express My sorrow at the thought of this sweat, this anguish, this agony this Blood…useless for so many souls!” 

It’s as if that thought of all the torture and calumines He would start to endure in a manner of hours leading up to His death the following afternoon would be in vain for so many souls tortured Him the most! As if He were thinking “I’m going to suffer excruciating pain and humiliation shortly and for so many it will be for nothing!”

And yet, all was not lost, not by a longshot! Sister Emmerich noted that,along the lines of Luke’s Gospel Angels presented to him all the bands of saints of future ages, who, joining their labours to the merits of his Passion, were, through him, to be united to his Heavenly Father. Most beautiful and consoling was this vision, in which he beheld the salvation and sanctification flowing forth in ceaseless streams from the fountain of redemption opened by his death.... 

It has been said that God sees all human history as a panorama, as He exists outside of our conception of time, in an Eternal Now, seeing human events at a glance.

Granted this is hard for us to comprehend but it raises a good question: In that panorama, does he see you and shed blood, sweat and tears? Or is He strengthened as Sister Emmerich noted. Can He look at you and say, "At least you get it"?

This to me is the great challenge of this event, to fulfill our calling to be among that number of saints in this heartbreaking mystery! It has been said that Christ gave up His life so that each and every one of us could be saved, and that includes me and you! 

An important part of becoming a saint is living with Christ in you, and you in Him, through prayer, participating in His sacraments of the Eucharist and Penance, and striving to live as Christ-like as you can by showing His love, patience, and compassion in how you treat others.

Pray that we can all be part of that mighty army of saints that can have given Him comfort and strength to fulfill the mission of His Passion for our salvation. And for God to give you the grace in the midst of your sins to give Him some comfort and strength. Pray that His blood sweat at Gethsemane and shed at Calvary may not have been in vain for you and others, both the good and the bad. 

I pray that Jesus can somehow have seen each of one of us in that consoling vision, thinking “at least my suffering will not be in vain for them. They’ll honor My sacrifice with their love.” And may we all thus be able to join Him in paradise one day! 

God Bless,

Christopher Castagnoli
for www.ourcatholicprayers.com