Information service of the Pontifical Mission Societies since 1927
Vatican City (Agenzia Fides) - One of the episodes we will meditate during the days of the Lord's Passion, is that of the three disciples, Peter, James and John who fall asleep in the Garden of Olives while Jesus experiences his terrible agony. The Lord had asked them to “stay awake”, to keep him company, but in vain. They fall into a deep sleep, as it happens when the instincts of the 'flesh' get the better of the desires of the “spirit”. Jesus does not rebuke them, when he calls them back to reality; as He wakes Peter he says only: “'Simon, are you asleep? Had you not the strength to stay awake one hour? Stay awake and pray not to be put to the test. The spirit is willing enough, but human nature is weak” (Mk 14, 37b-38).
“Stay awake”! Prayer is not enough we must watch ourselves: our thoughts, emotions, humours, instincts, desires, because men are always ready to “descend” from the spiritual to the merely material level, causing the disciple of Christ to “slip" in “down to earth" attitudes which have little or nothing to do with the “spirit”. We should not place too much trust in our heart of flesh, which, as Scripture says, “is difficult to heal” (Jer 17, 9). It is necessary to strive continually to keep the difficult balance between spirit and matter, soul and body, and the needs of both, while always giving priority to the spirit, because, as Jesus says, “human nature is weak” and, unless it is subject to the spirit, it drags us to earth!
The disciple must walk with his eyes on the Lord, so as not to bend downwards, a prisoner of his instincts, like one who refuses to lift his head to marvel at the blue Heavens, to breath the fragrance of Easter. The Christian must continually go out of himself in order to become like his Redeemer, by imitating Him.
In one of his splendid comments on Christ's Passion, Pope Saint Leo the Great says: “The Christian people are invited to share the riches of paradise. For all the baptised the path is opened to return to our lost homeland, unless some wish to exclude themselves from this way, which opened even to the faith of the thief. Let us make sure the activities of this life do not create in us too much anxiety or too much presumption to the point of annulling our efforts to become like our Redeemer, imitating his example. Everything He did and suffered was for our salvation, so that the virtue which was in the Head, might be possessed also by the Body…”.
The apostles, like us, fall “low” because they are not watchful, they allow themselves to be dominated by instincts of “survival” when faced with something which, humanly speaking, was a disaster: the Passion! A disaster, but relative; it was in fact the prelude to total triumph, which Jesus had foretold: the triumph of His Resurrection: “ 'The Son of man will be delivered into the power of men; they will put him to death; and three days after he has been put to death he will rise again.'” (Mk 9, 31).
The reason for the crisis of faith today in the Christian world is the same as ever: too little interior life, too little spiritual life in which the materiality of human existence obeys the clear superiority of the spirit. How often the Lord told his disciples: “my Kingdom is not of this world” (Jn 18, 36), “you are not of this world ” (Jn 15, 19). God's Kingdom cannot draw its power from any earthly thing, because it is eminently spiritual. How often the Lord underlined that the soul is superior to the body, the spirit superior to the world: “ What gain, then, is it for anyone to win the whole world and forfeit his life?” (Mk 8, 36)
Keeping awake means giving absolute priority to the soul's relationship with God, because “God is Spirit ” (Jn 4, 24), He is not matter! “God became like us, to make us like Him”, if we are willing, if we keep His commandments. “ I have told you this so that my own joy may be in you and your joy be complete.” (Jn 15, 11). Jesus speaks of a spiritual joy, which penetrates the soul and fills it with meaning, a joy which the senses of the flesh, weighed down by sin, are unable to perceive, this is why we must deny them, make them subject to the Spirit.
The Holy Father Pope Benedict XVI recently warned about the threat of "secularisation" even within the Church: “This secularisation is not only an external threat to believers, for some time now it has shown itself even within the Church herself. It perverts from within and in profundity the Christian faith, the life style and daily behaviour of the believers. They live in the world and are often influenced if not conditioned by the culture of the image which imposes contradictory models and impulses, in practical negation of God: there is no longer any need for God, to think about Him, to return to Him. Moreover, a prevailing hedonistic and consumerist mentality promotes in both the faithful and the clergy, a drifting towards superficiality and self-centredness which harms ecclesial life” (Benedict XVI, Audience with the Plenary of the Pontifical Council for Culture, 8 March 2008).
We fall asleep instead of keeping Jesus company, when we allow ourselves to be conditioned by the world, circumscribing happiness to it, to the disadvantage of the spirit, as Saint Paul says: “human nature has nothing to look forward to but death, while the Spirit looks forward to life and peace... and those who live by their natural inclinations can never be pleasing to God. You, however, live not by your natural inclinations, but by the Spirit, since the Spirit of God has made a home in you” (Rom 8, 5ss). The Lord's Passion would be in vain if we did not decide to live “according to the Spirit”. May the Mother of God have the joy this coming Easter of accompanying many converted disciples to Him! (Agenzia Fides 12/3/2008; righe 64, parole 961)
