>While at the Abbey a few weeks back, I picked up a leaflet in the guest library called, Prayer to Jesus, Agonising on the Mount of Olives. The language was over the top, as is usual with this type of devotional writing, but something about it snagged on my soul, so I took it home. After reading it through I was convinced that despite it’s completely cliche style, there was something truly wonderful in devotion to Jesus in the Garden.
Heavily edited for style: “I pray You to move my soul and heart at least once a day to think of your agony in the Garden, so that I may communicate with you, and be united with you as close as possible.”
That was the trigger, “think at least once a day of your agony in the garden.” How often do we really turns our minds to Jesus suffering in the garden? Certainly we do on Holy Thursday, but that’s to be expected. What about during the Thursday of the 123 Week of Ordinary Time? Is there enough reason, right now, to put the garden into our minds? Or, more accurately, put us in the garden with Jesus?
The suggestion in the pamphlet, that just thinking about Jesus in the garden is an act of prayer, is a powerful stimulant of desire for more prayer. This started me thinking about what a fine devotional practice meditation on the agony in the garden might yield.
