“Judas, one of the Twelve, arrived, accompanied by a crowd with swords and clubs who had come from the chief priests, the scribes, and the elders. His betrayer had arranged a signal with them, saying, “The man I shall kiss is the one; arrest him and lead him away securely.” (MK 14:43-44)
As I pray in the Garden of Gethsemane, I hear the marching of soldiers, the clanking of chains, the anger, the hate, the deception, the greed. My heart grows faint, my eyelids become heavy. I am weak but remain with Jesus. The sound of his sighs, the whisper of his cry leads me to uncontrollable tears. God gives me the grace to see beyond my own sinfulness and to see Jesus suffering in his humanity. He suffers for all of humanity. He suffers for you and for me. He suffers for everyone. He loves you and he loves me. He loves everyone. Rejection is hard for us. We take it so personal. We tend to make everything about us. We make it all about ourselves. Usually, rejection is a response to our lack of charity, our selfishness, our pride, our desire for power and control. But the rejection Jesus suffers is from hearts grown cold that have simply rejected love and mercy. The pain is unbearable. Rejected through a kiss. Betrayed by the kiss of peace. The sadness is unbearable. Jesus is rejected because he is good, innocent, pure, holy. He is rejected because of our own selfishness, stubbornness, pridefulness. We reject him because of guilt, shame, reluctance to ask for forgiveness and foolishness in receiving it. Every time we sin, we reject Jesus. We hurt and kill our Savior. But Jesus is kind and merciful. He invites us to follow him, to console him with his love. He invites us to see his humanity suffering and in the suffering of his humanity he wants to love us. O my Jesus, the thought of comforting you, even in the midst of so much noise and so many tears, moves me to say yes Lord, I will stay with you, I will come to you, I will pray with you, I will follow you. O my Jesus, how you love us and till this day feel the wounds we caused by our ingratitude, our childlessness, our greed, our ignorance. Our thoughts must be like daggers to your Divine Intellect, our inappropriate acts like a jack hammer to your Blessed Hands, our blasphemies like the sound of an atomic bomb to your Holy Ears, our pornographic vision like acid to your Precious Eyes and the hardness of our hearts like venom to your Most Sacred Heart. Forgive us Jesus. Forgive us our trespasses. Help us to use your Will, your Thoughts, your Words, your Body to atone for our sins and those of the whole world. Jesus, we believe in you, we love you, we trust in you.