Look upon Him on His way to the Garden as He said: “My soul is sorrowful even unto death.” What sore distress He must have borne in His soul, to describe His own sufferings as He did!

I was particularly attached to this prayer in the Garden, where I would go to keep Him company. I would think of the sweat and of the affliction He endured there. I wished I could have wiped that grievous sweat from His face.

The mere sight of the Lord on His knees, covered with that terrible sweat will suffice us not merely for an hour, but for many days. We consider Who He is and how ungrateful we have been to One Who has borne such pain for us. Then the will is aroused with the desire to make some kind of return for this great favor, and to suffer something for One Who has suffered so much Himself.

Think of what the good Jesus said in His prayer: “the flesh is weak”; and remember His most wondrous and pitiful sweat. If His Majesty said that that Divine and sinless flesh of His was weak, how can we expect ours to be strong, that it will not feel the persecution and the trials that may assail it? In the very midst of them, the flesh will become subject to the Spirit. When once the will is united with that of God, it will complain no more.

O Eternal Wisdom, it was thus that You addressed Your Father in the Garden, telling Him of Your will and Your fear, but leaving Yourself in His hands.

Think with what resolution and fullness of desire He prayed, and consider if the will of God was not perfectly fulfilled in Him through the trials, sufferings, insults, and persecutions which His Father gave Him, until His life ended on a Cross.

We must try to practice the virtues, make a complete surrender of our wills to God, and order our lives as His Majesty ordains: let us desire that not our wills, but His will be done. We must say: “Your will be done.”

(Learn more about the life and legacy of St. Teresa of Jesus, Our Holy Mother.)