A Walk in the Garden

This morning we were blessed to be able to go to the Garden of Gethsemane for Mass. This has been a preferred place of prayer for several of us on pilgrimage and so it was a great joy to go there and celebrate the very mysteries of our faith that began on a Thursday night so long ago. The olive trees in the garden are beautiful and very ancient. Some of them trace their roots to the very time of Christ. The church itself is filled with mosaics of olive trees as well as of the betrayal of Christ and the disciples sleeping. The priest delivered to us a powerful sermon about friendship, staying awake and the need to be present to the People of God. We had about a half hour of prayer before Mass to pray in the church (called the Church of the Nations). Afterwards, we had a few moments to remain and pray inside or go out and contemplate the garden itself.

It was a profound time of prayer on this Thursday, as we like Christ prepare to surrender our lives to the Father in ordination and to say, “Not my will, but yours be done”. We reflected on our failures and our struggles in our walks with Christ and His insistent offering to give himself to us anew right in those places.

There is a contemporary Christian song by Matt Maher called “Garden,” which speaks of the original garden in Eden. Here at Gethsemane, another garden, these words ring true:

Your love's so strong
I can't recall
What was this thing
They called the fall?

And You walk with me
You never leave
You're making my heart a garden

Oh, why would I hide
Away from Your face
When the light of Your love
Illuminates?

In the garden we experienced the Love that never leaves us. Even when we leave Him, He stays with us. In the midst of our weakness, his desire is to make us anew into a garden of love and surrender to all that the Father desires to give us and do with us, even if that means the Cross.