Radical Love

Good morning, happy Tuesday, and blessings. 

In today’s gospel, John 17:1-11a, Jesus prays for us, even though we fail to pray for ourselves. The suffering began soon after the Last Supper when Jesus and His disciples went to the Garden of Gethsemane. Knowing that the time of His death was near, Jesus prayed intently.

 
While the Gospel of John gives us a description of Jesus in the midst of the agony in prayer, the Gospel of Luke gives us a description of that agony. According to Luke 22:44, “Being in agony, He prayed more earnestly. Then his sweat became like great drops of blood falling down to the ground.” All this praying for us and guaranteeing our salvific liberation.
 
Agony is a state of severe, usually extended, physical, mental, or emotional suffering. The word agony can be used to describe the intense pain of either the body or the mind. Emotional agony is a type of severe psychological pain that some of us may experience at some point in our lives, for a short or an extended period of time.
 
One key question may be; how to pray when we are in agony? David the psalmist in Psalm 12:1-2 says: How long, O LORD? Will you forget me forever? How long will you hide your face from me? How long must I take counsel in my soul and have sorrow in my heart all the day?  Psalm 13:1-2. The most striking thing about the beginning of this psalm is the complete candor with which David lays out his struggle before God. No holds barred! David feels that he has reached his limit, and he says how it is in the presence of God. He is seeking an authentic relationship, and that can only happen with honesty. This is exactly what is also happening with Jesus’ agony.
 
So, Jesus drank the cup of the wrath of God in our place. He endured the unimaginable spiritual agony we deserve so that we would be saved by Him from the wrath of God. We will never appreciate Jesus’ agonizing prayer in Gethsemane; we will never appreciate His sweating, as it were, great drops of blood, until we grasp in the depths of our beings that Jesus was staring at the wrath of God we deserve.
 
Hematidrosis is a rare, but very real, medical condition where one’s sweat will contain blood. The sweat glands are surrounded by tiny blood vessels. These vessels can constrict and then dilate to the point of rupture where the blood will then effuse into the sweat glands. Its cause—extreme anguish. Anguish is derived from the Latin word angustiae, meaning extreme pain, distress, or anxiety. The feeling of suffering from anguish is typically preceded by a tragedy or event that has a profound meaning to the being in question. Anguish can be felt physically or mentally (often referred to as emotional distress).
 
I have done my share of suffering in life, times when I didn't think anything could be so agonizing as what I was feeling and experiencing at that moment, but I have to say, I have never agonized to the point that I sweat blood. But then I wonder; why did Jesus have to experience so much suffering? Simple. This is about radical love. You see, the real value of love lies in its spiritual power.  The more your love costs, the more valuable it becomes because of the greater spiritual power it produces.  Am I prepared to do the same?
 
Blessings

Fr. Luis+