The Bitter Passion of Our Lord Jesus Christ

Jesus on the Mount of Olives

When Jesus left the Coenaculum with The Eleven, His soul was already troubled and His sadness on the increase. He led The Eleven to the Mount of Olives by an unfrequented path through the Valley of Josaphat. As they left the house, I saw the moon, which was not yet quite full, rising above the mountain. While walking in the Valley of Josaphat with the Apostles, the Lord said that He would one day return hither, though not poor and powerless as He then was, to judge the world. Then would men tremble with fear and cry out: “Ye mountains, cover us!” But the disciples understood Him not. They thought, as several times before during the evening, that from weakness and exhaustion He was wandering in speech. Sometimes they walked on, at others stood still talking to Him. He said to them: “All you shall be scandalized in Me this night. For it is written: I will strike the Shepherd, and the sheep of the flock will be dispersed. But after I shall be risen again, I will go before you into Galilee.”
The Apostles were still full of the enthusiasm and devotion inspired by the reception of the Most Holy Sacrament, and the loving, solemn discourse of Jesus afterward. They crowded eagerly around Him and expressed their love in different ways, protesting that they never could, they never would, abandon Him. But as Jesus continued to speak in the same strain, Peter exclaimed: “Although all should be scandalized in Thee, I will never be scandalized in Thee!” The Lord replied: “Amen, I say to thee that in this night before the cock crow, thou wilt deny Me thrice.” “Yea, though I should die with Thee, I will not deny Thee.” And so said all the others. They walked and paused alternately, and Jesus’ sadness continued to increase. The Apostles tried to dissipate it by human arguments, assuring Him that just the opposite of what He dreaded would take place. But finding their efforts vain and fruitless, they grew weary, and began already to doubt and fall into temptation.
They crossed the brook Cedron, but not by the bridge over which later on Jesus was led bound, for they had taken a byway. Gethsemani on Mount Olivet, whither they were going, was in a direct line one-half hour from the Coenaculum, for it was fifteen minutes from the Coenaculum to the valley of Josaphat, and the same distance from the latter to Gethsemani. This spot, in which during His last days Jesus had sometimes passed the night with His Apostles and instructed them, consisted of a large pleasure garden surrounded by a hedge. It contained some magnificent shrubbery and a great many fruit trees. Outside the garden were a few deserted houses, open for any that might wish to lodge there. Several persons, as well as the Apostles, had keys to this garden, which was used both as a place of recreation and prayer. Oftentimes, too, people that had no gardens of their own gave there their feasts and entertainments. There were in it several arbors formed of dense foliage. The Garden of Olives was separated by a road from that of Gethsemani and was higher up the mountain. It was open, being surrounded by only a rampart of earth. It was smaller than the pleasure garden of Gethsemani, a retired corner of the mountain full of grottos, terraces, and olive trees. One side of it was kept in better order. There were seats and benches and roomy caverns, cheerful and cool. Whoever wished, might find here a place suited to prayer and meditation. The spot chosen by Jesus was the wildest.
It was about nine o’clock when Jesus reached Gethsemani with the disciples. Darkness had fallen upon the earth, but the moon was lighting up the sky. Jesus was very sad. He announced to the Apostles the approach of danger, and they became uneasy. Jesus bade eight of them to remain in the Garden of Gethsemani, where there was a kind of summer-house built of branches and foliage. “Remain here,” He said, “while I go to My own place to pray.” He took Peter, John, and James the Greater with Him, crossed the road, and went on for a few minutes, until He reached the Garden of Olives farther up the mountain. He was inexpressibly sad, for He felt His approaching agony and temptation. John asked how He, who had always consoled them, could now be so dejected. He replied: “My soul is sorrowful even unto death.” He glanced around and on all sides saw anguish and temptation gathering about Him like dense clouds filled with frightful pictures. It was at that moment He said to the three Apostles: “Remain here and watch with Me. Pray lest ye enter into temptation!” and they stayed in that place. Jesus went a few steps forward. But the frightful visions pressed around Him to such a degree that, filled with alarm, He turned to the left from the Apostles and plunged down into a grotto formed by an overhanging rock. The Apostles remained in a hollow to the right above. The grotto in which Jesus concealed Himself was about six feet deep. The earth sank gently toward the back, and plants and shrubs hanging from the rocks towering over the entrance made it a place into which no eye could penetrate.
When Jesus left the Apostles, I saw a great number of frightful figures surrounding Him in an ever-narrowing circle. His sorrow and anguish increased. He withdrew tremblingly into the back of the cave, like one seeking shelter from a violent tempest, and there He prayed. I saw the awful visions following Him into the grotto, and becoming ever more and more distinct. Ah! It was as if that narrow cave encompassed the horrible, the agonizing vision of all the sins, with their delights and their punishments, committed from the Fall of our first parents till the end of the world; for it was here on Mount Olivet that Adam and Eve, driven from Paradise, had first descended upon the inhospitable earth, and in that very grotto had they in fear and alarm bewailed their misery. I felt in a most lively manner that Jesus, in resigning Himself to the sufferings that awaited Him and sacrificing Himself to Divine Justice in satisfaction for the sins of the world, caused in a certain manner His Divinity to return into the Most Holy Trinity. This He did in order—out of infinite love, in His most pure and sensitive, His most innocent and true Humanity, supported by the love of His human Heart alone—to devote Himself to endure for the sins of the world the greatest excess of agony and pain. To make satisfaction for the origin and development of all kinds of sin and guilty pleasures, the most merciful Jesus, through love for us sinners, received into His own Heart the root of all expiatory reconciliation and saving pains. He allowed those infinite sufferings in satisfaction for endless sins, like a thousand-branched tree of pain, to pierce through, to extend through all the members of His Sacred Body, all the faculties of His holy Soul. Thus entirely given up to His Humanity, He fell on His face, calling upon God in unspeakable sorrow and anguish. He saw in countless forms all the sins of the world with their innate hideousness. He took all upon Himself and offered Himself in His prayer to satisfy the justice of His Heavenly Father for all that guilt by His own sufferings. But Satan who, under a frightful form and with furious mockery, moved around among all this abomination, became at each moment more violently enraged against Him. He evoked before the eyes of His soul visions of the sins of men, one more frightful than the other, and constantly addressed to the Sacred Humanity of Jesus such words as, “What! Wilt Thou take this also upon Thyself? Art Thou ready to endure its penalty? How canst Thou satisfy for this?”
From that point in the heavens in which the sun appears between ten and eleven in the morning, a narrow path of light streamed toward Jesus, and on it I saw a file of angels coming down to Him. They imparted to Him fresh strength and vigor. The rest of the grotto was filled with the frightful and horrible visions of sin, and with the evil spirits mocking and tempting. Jesus took all upon Himself. In the midst of this confusion of abomination, His Heart, the only one that loved God and man perfectly, shrank in terror and anguish from the horror, the burden of all those sins. Ah, I saw there so many things! A whole year would not suffice to relate them!
When now this enormous mass of sin and iniquity had passed before the soul of Jesus in an ocean of horrible visions and He had offered Himself as the expiatory sacrifice for all, had implored that all their punishment and chastisement might fall upon Him, Satan, as once before in the desert, brought forward innumerable temptations; yes, he even dared to allege a crowd of accusations against the innocent Saviour Himself. “What!” said he to Him, “wilt Thou take all this upon Thee, and Thou art not pure Thyself? See, here and here and here!” and he unfolded all kinds of forged bonds and notes before Him, and with infernal impudence held them up under His eyes. He reproached Him with all the faults of His disciples, all the scandal they had given, all the disturbances and disorder He had caused in the world by abolishing ancient customs. Satan acted like the most crafty and subtle Pharisee. He reproached Jesus with causing Herod’s massacre of the Holy Innocents, with exposing His parents to want and danger in Egypt, with not having rescued John the Baptist from death, with bringing about disunion in many families, with having protected degraded people, refusing to cure certain sick persons, with injuring the Gergeseans by permitting the possessed to overturn their vats and their swine to rush into the sea. He accused Him of the guilt of Mary Magdalen, since He had not prevented her relapse into sin; of neglecting His own family; of squandering the goods of others; and, in one word, all that the tempter would at the hour of death have brought to bear upon an ordinary mortal who, without a high and holy intention, had been mixed up in such affairs, Satan now suggested to the trembling soul of Jesus with the view of causing Him to waver. It was hidden from him that Jesus was the Son of God, and he tempted Him as merely the most righteous of men. Yes, our Divine Redeemer permitted, in a certain measure, His most holy Humanity to veil His Divinity, that He might endure those temptations that come upon the holiest souls at the hour of death respecting the intrinsic merit of their good works. That He might drain the chalice of suffering, He permitted the tempter, from whom His Divinity was hidden, to upbraid Him with His works of beneficence as so many sins incurring penalty and not yet blotted out by the grace of God. The tempter reproached Him likewise for desiring to atone for the sins of others, although He was Himself without merit and had not yet made satisfaction to God for the grace of many a so-called good work. The Divinity of Jesus allowed the wicked fiend to tempt His Sacred Humanity just as he would tempt a man who might have ascribed his good works to some special merit of their own, independent of that which they can acquire by being united with the merits of the saving death of our Lord and Saviour. Thus the tempter called up before Jesus all the works of His love as not only without merit for Himself, but as so many crimes against God; and as their value was, in a certain measure, derived from the merits of His Passion not yet perfected and of whose worth Satan was ignorant, therefore for the grace by which He effected them He had not yet made satisfaction. For all His good works, Satan showed Jesus written bonds, telling Him as he pointed to them: “For this action and for this also, hast Thou incurred indebtedness.” At last he unrolled before Him a note that He had received from Lazarus for the sale of Magdalen’s property in Magdalum, and the proceeds of which He had expended. Satan accompanied the action with these words: “How darest Thou squander the property of others and thereby injure the family?” I saw in vision all those things for which the Lord offered Himself in atonement, and with Him I bore the burden of many of the accusations that the tempter made against Him; for among those visions of the sins of the world that the Saviour took upon Himself, I saw my own numerous transgressions. From the cloud of temptations that encircled Jesus, I saw a stream flow toward myself, and in it were shown me, to my great consternation, all my defects of omission and commission. Still, I kept my eyes turned toward my Heavenly Bridegroom, I struggled and prayed with Him, and with Him I turned to the consoling angels. Ah! The Lord writhed like a worm under the weight of His sorrow and agony.
It was with the greatest difficulty that I restrained myself while all these charges were brought against the innocent Saviour. I was so enraged against Satan. But when he exhibited the note holding Jesus amenable for distributing the proceeds of Magdalen’s property, I could no longer subdue my anger, and I exclaimed: “How canst thou charge Jesus with the sale of Magdalen’s property as with a crime? I saw myself how the Lord devoted that sum received from Lazarus to works of mercy, how He released with it twenty-seven poor, abandoned creatures held prisoners for debt at Tirzah.”
At first Jesus knelt calmly in prayer, but after awhile His soul shrank in affright from the multitude and heinousness of man’s sins and ingratitude against God. So overpowering was the sadness, the agony of heart which fell upon Him that, trembling and shuddering, He prayed imploringly: “Abba, Father, if it be possible, remove this chalice from Me! My Father, all things are possible to Thee. Take this chalice from Me!” Then recovering Himself, He added: “But not what I will, but what Thou wilt.” His will and the Father’s were one. But now that through love He had delivered Himself up to the weakness of His human nature, He shuddered at the thought of death.
I saw the grotto around Him filled with frightful figures. I saw the sins, the wickedness, the vices, the torments, the ingratitude of men torturing and crushing Him, and the horror of death, the terror that He experienced as Man at the greatness of the expiatory sufferings soon to come upon Him, I saw pressing around Him and assailing Him under the form of the most hideous specters. Wringing His hands, He swayed from side to side, and the sweat of agony covered Him. He trembled and shuddered. He arose, but His trembling knees could scarcely support Him. His countenance was quite disfigured and almost unrecognizable. His lips were white, and His hair stood on end. It was about half-past ten o’clock when He staggered to His feet and, bathed in sweat and often falling, tottered rather than walked to where the three disciples were awaiting Him. He ascended to the left of the grotto and up to a terrace upon which they were resting near one another supported on their arm, the back of one turned toward the breast of his neighbor. Exhausted with fatigue, sorrow, and anxiety under temptation, they had fallen asleep. Jesus went to them like a man overwhelmed with sorrow whom terror drives to the company of his friends, and also like a faithful shepherd who, though himself trembling to the utmost, looks after his herd which he knows to be in danger, for He knew that they too were in anguish and temptation. All along this short distance, I saw that the frightful forms never left Him. When He found the Apostles sleeping, He clasped His hands and, sinking down by them from grief and exhaustion, He said: “Simon, sleepest thou?” At these words, they awoke and raised Him up. In His spiritual dereliction, He said: “What! Could ye not watch one hour with Me?” When they found Him so terrified and disfigured, so pale, trembling, and saturated with sweat, shuddering and shaking, His voice feeble and stammering, they were altogether at a loss what to think. Had He not appeared surrounded by the light so well known to them, they would not have recognized Him as Jesus. John said to Him: “Master! What has befallen Thee? Shall I call the other disciples? Shall we take to flight?” Jesus answered: “Were I to live, teach, and work miracles for thirty-three years longer, it would not suffice for the accomplishment of what I have to fulfill before this time tomorrow. Do not call The Eight! I have left them where they are, because they could not see Me in this suffering state without being scandalized at Me. They would fall into temptation, forget many things that I have said to them, and lose confidence in Me. But you who have seen the Son of Man transfigured, may also see Him in this hour of darkness and complete dereliction of soul; nevertheless watch and pray, lest ye fall into temptation, for the spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak.” These last words referred both to Himself and to the Apostles. Jesus wished by them to exhort His followers to perseverance, and to make known to them the struggle of His human nature against death, together with the cause of His weakness. In His overpowering sorrow, He said many other things to them, and remained with them about a quarter of an hour.
Jesus returned to the grotto, His anguish on the increase. The Apostles, seeing Him leave them thus, stretched out their hands after Him, wept, threw themselves into one another’s arms, and asked: “What does this mean? What is the matter with Him? He is perfectly desolate!” And then covering their heads, they began in great anxiety to pray. All thus far related occupied about one hour and a half counting from Jesus’ entrance into the Garden of Olives. In the Scripture it does, indeed, say: “Could you not watch one hour with Me?” But these words are not to be taken according to our measure of time. The three Apostles who were with Jesus had prayed at first and then slept, for, owing to distrusted speeches, they had fallen into temptation. The Eight however, who had remained at the entrance, did not sleep. The anxiety that marked all of Jesus’ last actions on that evening greatly disquieted them, and they wandered around Mount Olivet seeking a hiding place for themselves.
There was little bustle in Jerusalem on this evening. The Jews were in their homes busied with preparations for the feast. The lodgings for the Paschal guests were not in the neighborhood of the Mount of Olives. As I went to and fro on the road, I saw here and there friends and disciples of Jesus walking together and conversing. They appeared to be uneasy and in expectation of something. The Mother of the Lord, with Magdalen, Martha, Mary Cleophas, Mary Salome, and Salome had gone from the Coenaculum to the house of Mary Marcus. Alarmed at the reports that she had heard, Mary and her friends went on toward the city to get some news of Jesus. Here they were met by Lazarus, Nicodemus, Joseph of Arimathea, and some relatives from Hebron, who sought to comfort Mary in her great anxiety. These friends knew of Jesus’ earnest discourse in the Coenaculum, some from being themselves present in the side buildings, others from having been informed of it by the disciples; but although they questioned some Pharisees of their acquaintance, yet they heard of no immediate steps against Our Lord. They said, therefore, “The danger is not so great. And besides, the enemies of Jesus would make no attempt against Him so near to the feast.” They did not know of Judas’ treachery. Mary told them how restless he had been during the past few days, and of his sudden departure from the Coenaculum. He had certainly gone with treacherous intentions, for, as she said, she had often warned him that he was a son of perdition. The holy women returned to the house of Mary Marcus.
When Jesus went back into the grotto carrying His load of sadness with Him, He cast Himself face downward on the ground, His arms extended, and prayed to His Heavenly Father. And now began for His soul a new struggle, which lasted three quarters of an hour. Angels came and showed Him in a long series of visions and in all its’ extent what He would have to endure for the atonement of sin. They showed the beauty and excellence of man, the image of God, before the Fall, along with his deformity and corruption after the Fall. They showed how every sin originates from that first sin; they pointed out the essence and signification of concupiscence, its terrible effects upon the powers of the soul, as well as upon the physical well-being of man; also the essence and signification of all the sufferings entailed as chastisements by that same lusting after pleasure. They showed Him, in the expiatory sufferings that awaited Him, first a suffering that would reach to both body and soul, a punishment that would comprehend in its intensity all the penalty due to Divine Justice for all the sins of the whole human race. Secondly, they showed Him a suffering which, in order to be satisfactory, should chastise the crimes of the whole human race in that Humanity which alone was sinless—namely, the Most Sacred Humanity of the Son of God. That Sacred Humanity, through love, assumed all the guilt of mankind with the penalty due to it; consequently, It had also to gain the victory over man’s abhorrence of pain and death. All this the angels showed Jesus, sometimes appearing in whole choirs and exhibiting row after row of pictures, and sometimes displaying only the principal features of His Passion. I saw them pointing with raised finger to the visions as they appeared, and without hearing any voice, I understood what they said.
No tongue can express the horror, the anguish that overwhelmed the soul of Jesus at the sight of these visions of expiatory suffering. He understood not only the consequence of every species of concupiscence, but also its own peculiar expiatory chastisement, the significance of all the instruments of torture connected with it; so that not only the thought of the instrument made Him shudder, but also the sinful rage of him that invented it, the fury and wickedness of all that had ever used it, and the impatience of all, whether innocent or guilty, who had been tortured with it. All these tortures and afflictions Jesus perceived in an interior contemplation, and the sight filled Him with such horror that a bloody sweat started from the pores of His sacred Body.
While the adorable Humanity of Christ was thus agonizing and writhing under this excess of suffering, I saw among the angels a feeling of compassion for Him. There seemed to be a pause, in which they appeared desirous of giving Him consolation, and I saw them praying to that effect before the throne of God. For an instant, there seemed to be a struggle between the mercy and the justice of God and that love which was sacrificing itself. I had also a vision of God not as before seated upon His throne, but in a less clearly defined, though luminous, figure. I saw the divine nature of the Son in the Person of the Father and, as it were, withdrawn into His bosom. The Person of the Holy Ghost was proceeding from the Father and the Son. He was, as it were, between them, and yet there was only one God. But who can speak of such things? I had more an interior perception of all this than a vision under human forms. In it I was shown that the Divine Will of Christ withdrew more into the Father in order to permit His Most Sacred Humanity to suffer all those things for whose mitigation and warding off the human will struggled and prayed in agony; so that the Godhead of Christ being one with the Father, all that for whose removal His Manhood prayed to the Father, should weigh upon His Humanity alone. I saw all this at the instant of the angels’ sympathetic emotion, when they conceived the desire to console Jesus, who did in fact, at that same moment, receive some alleviation. But now these visions disappeared, and the angels with their soothing compassion retired from the Lord, to whose soul a new sphere of agony more violent even than the last opened up.
When the Redeemer on Mount Olivet, as a true and real human being, delivered Himself to the temptation of human abhorrence against suffering and death; when He took upon Himself also the vanquishing of that abhorrence, the endurance of which forms a part of every suffering, the tempter was permitted to do to Him what he does to every mortal who desires to offer himself a sacrifice in any holy cause. In the first part of the Lord’s agony, Satan with furious mockery set before Him the immensity of the debt that He was about assuming, and he carried the temptation so far as to represent the actions of the Redeemer Himself as not free from faults. After that, in this second agony, there was displayed before Jesus in all its greatness and intrinsic bitterness the expiatory suffering necessary to discharge that immense debt. This was shown Him by the angels, for it belongs not to Satan to show that expiation is possible. The Father of lies and despair never exhibits to men the works of divine mercy. But when Jesus, with heartfelt abandonment to the will of His Heavenly Father, had victoriously resisted these assaults, a succession of new and terrifying visions passed before His soul. He experienced that uneasiness felt by every human heart on the point of making some great sacrifice. The questioning doubt: What advantage, what return shall I reap from this sacrifice? arose in the soul of the Lord, and the sight of the awful future overwhelmed His loving Heart.
Upon the first man God sent a deep sleep, opened his side, took out one of his ribs, formed from it Eve, the first woman, the mother of all the living, and conducted her to Adam. Receiving her from God, Adam exclaimed: “This now is bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh. The man shall leave father and mother, and shall cleave to his wife; and they shall be two in one flesh.” This is the marriage of which it is written: “This is a great Sacrament, I speak in Christ and in the Church.” Christ, the new Adam, was pleased to permit a sleep, the sleep of death, to come upon Him on the Cross. He permitted, likewise, His side to be opened that the new Eve, His virginal Bride, the Church, the Mother of all the living, might be formed from it. He willed to give her the Blood of Redemption, the water of purification, and His own Spirit, the three that render testimony upon earth. He willed to bestow upon her the holy Sacraments in order that she should be a Bride pure, holy, and undefiled. He willed to be her head and we the members, bone of His bone and flesh of His flesh. In taking human nature and willing to suffer death for us, He too left Father and Mother to cleave to His Bride, the Church. He has become one flesh with her, nourishing her with the Most Holy Sacrament of the Altar, in which He unceasingly espouses us. He wills to remain on earth with His Bride, the Church, until we shall all in her be united to Him in Heaven. He has said: “The gates of Hell shall not prevail against her.” To exercise this immeasurable love for sinners, the Lord became man and the brother of sinners, that He might thus take upon Himself the punishment of all their guilt. He had indeed contemplated with anguish the immensity of that guilt and the greatness of the expiatory sufferings due to them, but at the same time He had offered Himself joyfully as a victim of expiation to the will of His Heavenly Father. Now, however, He beheld the sufferings, temptations, and wounds of the future Church, His Bride, which He had purchased at so dear a price, that of His own Blood, and He saw the ingratitude of man.
Before the soul of the Lord there passed in review all the future sufferings of His Apostles, disciples, and friends, and the small number of the primitive Church. As her numbers increased, He saw heresies and schisms entering her fold, and the sin of Adam repeated by pride and disobedience in all forms of vanity and delusive self-righteousness. The tepidity, the malice, the wickedness of innumerable Christians; the manifold lies, the deceptive subtlety of all proud teachers; the sacrilegious crimes of all wicked priests with their frightful consequences; the abomination of desolation in the Kingdom of God upon earth, in the sanctuary of the thankless human race whom, amid inexpressible sufferings, He was about to redeem with His Blood and His life.
The scandals of the ages down to our own day and even to the end of the world, I saw pass before Jesus’ soul in an immense succession of visions: all forms of error, proud fallacies, mad fanaticism, false prophecies, obstinate heresies, all kinds of wickedness. The apostates, the self-righteous, the teachers of error, the pretended reformers, the corrupters and the corrupted of all ages, mocked and tormented Him for not having been crucified according to their ideas, for not having died comfortably on the Cross according to their desires, according to their fancy or caprice. They tore and divided the seamless robe of the Church. Each wanted to have a Redeemer other than He who had delivered Himself through love. Countless numbers ill-treated Him, mocked Him, disowned Him. He saw countless others who, disdainfully shrugging their shoulders and wagging their heads at Him, avoided His arms stretched out to save them and hurried on to the abyss which swallowed them up. He saw innumerable others who dared not openly deny Him, but who turned away in disgust from the wounds of His Church, which they themselves had helped to inflict. They were like the Levite passing by the poor man that had fallen among robbers. Jesus saw them abandoning His wounded Bride like cowardly, faithless children who forsake their mother in the dead of night at the approach of the thieves and murderers to whom they themselves had opened the door. He saw them hastening after the booty that had been conveyed into the wilderness, the golden vessels and the broken necklaces. He saw them pitching their tents under the wild offshoots, far away from the true vine. He saw them like wandering sheep becoming the prey of wolves, and led into unwholesome pasturage by base hirelings, instead of going into the sheepfold of the Good Shepherd who gave His life for His sheep. He saw them straying homeless, willfully closing their eyes to His city placed high upon a mountain, and which could not remain hid. He saw them scattered in the desert, driven hither and thither by changing winds among the sand drifts; but they would not see the house of His Bride, the Church, built upon a rock, with which He had promised to abide till the end of time, and against which the gates of Hell shall never prevail. They would not enter through the narrow gate, because they were not willing to bend their neck. He saw them following leaders who would conduct them anywhere and everywhere, but not to the true door. They built upon the sand perishable huts of all kinds, without altar or sacrifice, the roofs surmounted by weathercocks, according to which their doctrines were ever changing; consequently they were ever in opposition to one another, they understood not one another, they had no fixed state. He saw them, time and again, pulling down their huts and hurling the fragments against the cornerstone of the Church which, however, stood unshaken. He saw many among them, although darkness reigned in their dwellings, neglecting to go to the light that was placed on the candlestick in the house of the Bride. They wandered with closed eyes around the enclosed gardens of the Church by whose perfumes alone they still lived. They stretched out their arms after shadowy forms and followed wandering stars that guided them to wells without water. When on the very brink of the precipice, they heeded not the voice of the Bride calling them and, though dying with hunger, proudly and pityingly derided the servants and messengers sent to invite them to the marriage feast. They would not enter the garden, for they feared the thorns of the hedge. The Lord saw them hungering and thirsting, but without wheat or wine. They were intoxicated with self-esteem and blinded by their own lights, wherefore they persisted in declaring that the Church of the Word made Flesh is invisible. Jesus beheld all, grieved over all, and longed to suffer for all, even for those that do not see Him, that do not carry their cross after Him in His Bride, to whom He gives Himself in the Most Holy Sacrament; in His City built upon a mountain, and which cannot remain hidden; in His Church founded upon a rock and against which the gates of Hell cannot prevail.
All these innumerable visions upon the ingratitude of men and their abuse of the atoning death of my Heavenly Bridegroom I saw passing before the agonized soul of the Lord, sometimes in changing pictures, and again in painful reproductions of the same. I saw Satan under many frightful forms, dragging away and strangling under the eyes of the Lord, men redeemed by His Blood; yes, even those anointed by His Sacrament. Jesus beheld with bitter anguish all the ingratitude, the corruption of Christendom past, present, and future. While these visions were passing before Him, the voice of the tempter of His Humanity was constantly heard whispering: “See! Canst Thou undergo such sufferings in the sight of such ingratitude?” These words, added to the mockery and the abominations that He beheld in the rapidly changing visions, pressed with such violence upon Him that His most Sacred Humanity was crushed under a weight of unspeakable agony. Christ, the Son of Man, writhed in anguish and wrung His hands. As if overwhelmed, He fell repeatedly on His knees, while so violent a struggle went on between His human will and His repugnance to suffer so much for so thankless a race, that the sweat poured from Him in a stream of heavy drops of blood to the ground. Yes, He was so oppressed that He glanced around as if seeking help, as if calling upon Heaven and earth and the stars of the firmament to witness His anguish. It seemed to me that I heard Him crying out: “Ah, is it possible that such ingratitude can be endured! Witness ye My extreme affliction!”
At that moment, the moon and the stars appeared suddenly to draw nearer to the earth, and I felt in that same moment that the night became brighter. I noticed on the moon what I had not seen before. It looked quite different. It was not yet quite full, though it appeared to be larger than it does to us. In its center, I saw a dark spot. It looked like a flat disc lying before it. In the center of this disc, there appeared to be an opening through which streamed light to the moon not yet full. The dark spot was like a mountain, and all around the moon was a circle of light like a rainbow.
In His sore distress, Jesus raised His voice for some instants in loud cries of anguish. I saw that the three Apostles sprang up in fright. With raised hands, they listened to Jesus’ cries and were on the point of hastening to Him. But Peter stopped James and John, saying: “Stay here! I will go to Him.” And I saw him hurrying forward and entering the grotto. “Master,” he cried, “what has happened to Thee?”—but he paused in terror at the sight of Jesus bathed in blood and trembling with fear. Jesus made no answer, and appeared not to notice Peter. Then Peter returned to the other two, and reported that Jesus had answered him only by sighs and groans. This news increased the sorrow and anxiety of the Apostles. They covered their heads and sat weeping and praying with many tears.
I turned again to my Heavenly Bridegroom in His bitter agony. The frightful visions of the ingratitude and the misdeeds of future generations whose debt He was taking upon Himself, whose chastisement He was about to endure, overwhelmed Him with their ever-increasing multitude and horror. His struggle against the repugnance of His human nature for suffering continued, and several times I heard Him cry out: “Father, is it possible to endure all this? O Father, if this chalice cannot pass from Me, may Thy will be done!”
Among this throng of apparitions typical of the outrages offered to Divine Mercy, I saw Satan under various abominable forms, each bearing reference to the species of guilt then exhibited. Sometimes he appeared as a great black figure in human shape, and again as a tiger, a fox, a wolf, a dragon, a serpent; not that he really took any of these forms, but he displayed the chief characteristics of their nature joined to other hideous appearances. There was nothing in them that perfectly resembled any creature. They were symbols of discord, of abomination, of contradiction, of horror, of sin—in a word, they were diabolical shapes. And by these hellish forms, Jesus beheld innumerable multitudes of men urged on, seduced, strangled, and torn to pieces—men for whose redemption from the power of Satan, He was about to enter upon the way that led to the bitter death of the Cross. At first I saw the serpent but seldom, but toward the last I beheld it in gigantic form, a crown upon its head. With terrible might and leading after it immense legions of human beings from every condition of life and of every race, it prepared to attack Jesus. Armed with all kinds of engines and destructive weapons, they struggled for some moments among themselves, and then with frightful fury turned the attack upon Jesus. It was an awful spectacle. Their weapons, their swords and spears, rose and fell like flails on a boundless thrashing floor, and they raged against the Heavenly Grain of Wheat that had come upon earth to die in order to feed mankind eternally with the Bread of Life.
I saw Jesus in the midst of these raging multitudes, many of whom appeared to me blind. He was as much affected by the sight as if their weapons really descended upon Him. I saw Him staggering from side to side, sometimes standing upright, and then falling to the ground. The serpent formed the central figure in this army, which it constantly led forward to new attacks. It lashed its tail around on all sides, and all whom it felled to the earth or enveloped in its coils it strangled, tore to pieces, or devoured. Upon this I received an instruction that these multitudes that were thus tearing Jesus to pieces represented the countless number of those that in divers ways ill-treat Him who, in His Divinity and Humanity, Body and Soul, Flesh and Blood under the forms of bread and wine in the Most Blessed Sacrament, dwells ever present in that Mystery as their Redeemer. Among these enemies of Jesus, I recognized the offences of all kinds committed against the Blessed Sacrament, that living Pledge of His uninterrupted personal Presence with the Catholic Church. I saw with horror all the outrages springing from neglect, irreverence, and omission, as also those of abuse and the most awful sacrilege. I saw those that arose from the worship of the gods of this world, from spiritual darkness and false, superficial knowledge, from error, incredulity, fanaticism, hatred, and bloody persecution. I saw all kinds of people among these enemies: the blind and the lame, the deaf and the dumb, and children. There were blind who would not see the truth; the lame through sloth, who would not follow it; the deaf who would not listen to its warnings or its threats; the dumb who would never, with the sword of the word, take up their Lord’s defense; and in fine, children spoiled by following worldly minded and God-forgetting parents and teachers, who were fed on earthly pleasure, who were intoxicated with empty knowledge, and who loathed divine things, though starving without them. Among these children (the sight of whom grieved me especially, because Jesus so loved children), I noticed in particular many badly instructed, badly reared, and irreverent acolytes who do not honor Christ in the Holy Mass. Their guilt falls partly upon their teachers and the careless sacristans. But with terror I saw that many of the priests themselves, both of high and low degree—yes, even some that esteem themselves full of faith and piety—contribute their share toward outraging Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament. Of the many whom, to my great sorrow, I thus saw, I shall say a word of warning to one class only, and it is this: I saw numbers that believe, adore, and teach the Presence of the Living God in the Most Blessed Sacrament, yet who do not sufficiently take it to heart. They forget, they neglect, the palace, the throne, the canopy, the seat, and the royal adornments of the King of Heaven and earth, that is, the church, the altar, the tabernacle, the chalice, the monstrance of the living God, along with all the vessels, the furniture, the decorations, the festal robes, and all that is used in His worship, or the adornment of His house. All things were ignominiously covered with dust and rust, mouldering away and, through long years of neglect, falling to ruin. The service of the living God was shamefully neglected, and where it was not inwardly profaned, it was outwardly dishonored. Nor did all this arise from real poverty, but from indifference and sloth, from following old customs, from preoccupation of mind with vain, worldly affairs, and often too from self-seeking and spiritual death. I saw neglect of this kind in rich churches and in others tolerably well-off. Yes, I saw many in which worldly love of splendor and tinselled finery had replaced the magnificent and appropriate adornments of a more devout age. What the rich in ostentatious arrogance do, the poor foolishly aim at in their poverty and simplicity. This recalls to me our poor convent chapel in which the beautiful old stone altar had been covered with wood veined to imitate marble, a fact that always gave me sorrow.
These visions of the outrages offered to Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament I saw multiplied by innumerable church wardens who were totally deficient in their sense of equity, who failed to share at least what they had with their Redeemer present upon the altar, although He had delivered Himself to death for them, although He remains for them hidden in the Sacrament. Even the poorest creatures are often better off than the Lord of Heaven and earth in His churches. Ah, how deeply did the inhospitality of men trouble Jesus, who had given Himself to them as Food! Truly, riches are not necessary to entertain Him who rewards a thousandfold the glass of cold water given to the thirsty! And how great is His thirst for us! Ought He not to complain when water swarming with worms is offered Him in impure glasses? By such neglect, I saw the weak scandalized, the sanctuary profaned, the churches abandoned, the ministers of religion despised. This state of impurity and negligence sometimes extended even to the souls of the Faithful. They kept not the tabernacle of their hearts purer to receive therein the living God than was the tabernacle of the altar. For the fawning eye-service of princes and lords of the world, and to indulge their caprice and worldly designs, I saw every means carefully and actively resorted to by these unenlightened ecclesiastics, while the King of Heaven and earth lay like another Lazarus outside the gate, vainly sighing after the crumbs of love denied Him. He has nothing but the Wounds which we have inflicted upon Him and which the dogs lick, namely, ever-relapsing sinners who like dogs vomit and return to their food.
Were I to talk a whole year, it would not suffice to recount the different outrages committed against Jesus Christ in the Blessed Sacrament made known to me in this way. I saw the offenders in immense crowds with weapons corresponding to the species of crime perpetrated by them, assaulting the Lord and striking Him to the ground. I saw irreverent sacristans of all centuries, lightminded, sinful, worthless priests offering the Holy Sacrifice and distributing the Blessed Sacrament, and multitudes of tepid and unworthy communicants. I saw countless numbers to whom the Source of all blessing, the Mystery of the living God, had become an oath or a curse expressive of anger, and furious soldiers and servants of the devil who profaned the sacred vessels, who threw away the Most Blessed Sacrament, who horribly outraged It, or who dishonored It in their frightful, hellish worship of false gods. Side by side with these hideous, barbarous cruelties, I saw innumerable other forms of godlessness more refined and subtle, but not less atrocious. I saw many souls, owing to bad example and perfidious teachers, losing their faith in Jesus’ promises to remain always in the Blessed Sacrament, and no longer humbly adoring their Saviour therein present. I saw in this multitude a great many sinful teachers who became teachers of error. They first struggled against one another, and then united against Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament of His Church. I saw a great crowd of these apostate heresiarchs disdainfully rejecting the priesthood of the Church, attacking and denying Jesus Christ’s presence in the Mystery of the Blessed Sacrament in the manner in which He Himself gave this Mystery to the Church, which has truly preserved It. By their seductive words, they tore from the Heart of Jesus countless numbers for whom He had shed His Blood. Ah! It was fearful to look upon! For I saw the Church as the Body of Jesus, its scattered members all knitted together by Him in His bitter Passion. I saw all those people, all those families with their descendants that had separated from the Church, torn away from Jesus like entire pieces mangled and most painfully rent from His living flesh. Ah! He glanced at them so pitifully, He moaned so gently! He who, in order to unite to the body of His Church, to the body of His Bride, men so separated, so divided from one another, had given Himself in the Blessed Sacrament to be their Food, saw Himself in this, His Bride’s body, torn and lacerated through the wicked fruit of the tree of disunion. The Table of union in the Blessed Sacrament, Jesus’ highest work of love, that in which He willed to remain forever among men, became through false teachers the boundary line of separation. And where alone it is good and beneficial that many should become one, namely, at the Holy Table, whereon the living God is Himself the Food, there must His children separate from infidels and heretics in order not to render themselves guilty of similar sins. I saw whole nations torn in this way from the Heart of Jesus and deprived of participation in the treasures of grace left to the Church. It was frightful to behold how at first only a few separated from Christ’s Church; and when, having increased to whole nations, they returned to her, they again attacked her and warred against one another on the question of what was holiest in her worship, namely, the Blessed Sacrament. But finally, I saw all who had separated from the Church plunging into infidelity, superstition, heresy, darkness, and the false philosophy of the world. Perplexed and enraged, they united in large bodies to vent their anger against the Church. They were urged on and destroyed by the serpent in the midst of them. Ah! It was as if Jesus felt Himself torn into countless shreds. The Lord saw and felt in this distressing vision the whole weight of the poisonous tree of disunion with all its branches and fruits, which will continue to rend itself asunder until the end of time when the wheat will be gathered into the barn and the chaff cast into the fire.
The terror that I felt in beholding all this was so great, so dreadful, that my Heavenly Bridegroom appeared to me, and mercifully laying His hand on my breast, He said: “No one has ever before seen these things, and thy heart would break with fright, did I not sustain it.”
I now saw the blood in thick, dark drops trickling down the pale face of the Lord. His once smoothly parted hair was matted with blood, tangled and bristling on His head, and His beard was bloody and torn. It was after that last vision, in which the armed bands had lacerated His flesh, that He turned as if fleeing out of the grotto, and went again to His disciples. But His step was far from secure. He walked bowed like one tottering under a great burden. He was covered with wounds, and He fell at every step. When He reached the three Apostles, He did not, as on the first occasion, find them lying on their side asleep; they had sunk back on their knees with covered head, as I have often seen the people of that country sitting when in sorrow or in prayer. Worn out with grief, anxiety, and fatigue, they had fallen asleep; but when Jesus approached, trembling and groaning, they awoke. They gazed upon Him with their weary eyes, but did not at once recognize Him, for He was changed beyond the power of words to express. He was standing before them in the moonlight, His breast sunken, His form bent, His face pale and bloodstained, His hair in disorder, and His arms stretched out to them. He stood wringing His hands. The Apostles sprang up, grasped Him under the arms, and supported Him tenderly. Then He spoke to them in deep affliction. On the morrow, He said, He was going to die. In another hour, His enemies would seize Him, drag Him before the courts of justice, abuse Him, deride Him, scourge Him, and put Him to death in the most horrible manner. He begged them to console His Mother. He recounted to them in bitter anguish all that He would have to suffer until the evening of the next day, and again begged them to comfort His Mother and Magdalen. He stood thus speaking for some moments, but the Apostles kept silence, not knowing what to reply. They were so filled with grief and consternation at His words and appearance that they knew not what to say; indeed, they even thought that His mind was wandering. When He wanted to return to the grotto, He had not the power to do so. I saw that John and James had to lead Him. When He entered it, the Apostles left Him and went back to their own place. It was then a quarter past eleven.
During this agony of Jesus, I saw the Blessed Virgin overwhelmed with sorrow and anguish in the house of Mary Marcus. She was with Magdalen and Mary Marcus in a garden adjoining the house. She had sunk on her knees on a stone slab. She was perfectly absorbed in her own interior, quite diverted in thought from everything around her, seeing only, feeling only the sufferings of her Divine Son. She had sent messengers to obtain news of Him, but unable to await their coming, in her anguish of heart she went with Magdalen and Salome out into the Valley of Josaphat. I saw her walking along veiled, her arms often outstretched toward the Mount of Olives, where she saw in spirit Jesus agonizing and sweating blood. It seemed as if she would with her outstretched hands wipe His sacred face. In answer to these interior and vehement movements of her soul toward her Son, I saw that Jesus was stirred with thoughts of her. He turned His eyes in her direction as if seeking help from her. I saw this mutual sympathy under the appearance of rays of light passing to and fro between them. The Lord thought also of Magdalen and felt for her in her distress. He glanced toward her, and His soul was touched at sight of her. He therefore ordered the disciples to console her, for He knew that her love for Him, after that of His Mother, was greater than that of anyone else. He saw what she would have to suffer for Him in the future, and also that she would never more offend Him.
About this time, perhaps a quarter after eleven, the eight Apostles were again in the arbor in the Garden of Gethsemani. They spoke together for awhile and then fell asleep. They were unusually faint-hearted, discouraged, and in sore temptation. Each had been looking out for a place of safety and anxiously asking: “What shall we do when He is dead? We have abandoned our friends, we have given up everything, we have become poor and objects of scorn to the world, we have devoted ourselves entirely to His service—and now, behold Him crushed and helpless, with power to afford us no consolation!” The other disciples, after wandering about in various directions and hearing the reports of the awful prophecies to which Jesus had given utterance, nearly all retired to Bethphage.
Again I saw Jesus praying in the grotto. He had conquered the natural repugnance to suffer. Exhausted and trembling, He exclaimed: “My Father, if it be Thy will, remove this chalice from Me! Nevertheless, not My will but Thine be done!”
And now the abyss opened before Him and, as if on a pathway of light, He saw a long flight of steps leading down to Limbo. There He beheld Adam and Eve, all the Patriarchs and Prophets, the just of the Old Law, His Mother’s parents, and John the Baptist. They were with longing so intense awaiting His coming into that nether world that at the sight His loving Heart grew strong and courageous. His death was to open Heaven to these languishing captives! He was to deliver them from prison! For Him they were sighing!
After Jesus had with deep emotion gazed upon those citizens of Heaven belonging to former ages, the angels pointed out to Him the multitudes of future saints who, joining their labors to the merits of His Passion, would through Him be united to the Heavenly Father. This vision was unspeakably beautiful and consoling. All passed before the Lord in their number, their race, and various degrees of dignity—all adorned with their sufferings and good works. Then did He behold the hidden and inexhaustible streams of salvation and sanctification that were to spring from the death that awaited Him as Redeemer of mankind. The Apostles, the disciples, virgins and holy women, martyrs, confessors, and hermits, Popes and Bishops, the future multitudes of religious men and women—in a word, the immense army of the blessed passed before Him. All were adorned with crowns of victory won over passion and suffering. The flowers of their crowns differed in form, color, perfume, and vigor in accordance with the various sufferings, labors, and victories in which they had gloriously struggled. Their whole lives and actions, the peculiar worth and power of their combats and victories, as well as all the light, all the colors that symbolized their triumphs, came solely from their union with the merits of Jesus Christ. The reciprocal influence and relation of all these saints upon one another, their drinking out of one same Fountain, namely, the Most Blessed Sacrament and the Passion of the Lord, was a spectacle unspeakably wonderful and touching. Nothing connected with them happened by accident: their works and omissions, their martyrdom and victories, their apparel and appearance, though all so different, yet acted upon one another in unending unity and harmony. And this perfect unity in the most striking diversity sprang from the rays of light and sparkling colors of one single Sun, from the Passion of the Lord, the Word made Flesh, in whom was life, the light of men, which shone in darkness, but which the darkness did not comprehend.
It was the army of future saints that passed before the soul of the Lord. Thus stood the Lord and Saviour between the ardent desires of the Patriarchs and the triumphant host of future saints, which reciprocally filling up and completing one another, so to say, surrounded the loving Heart of the Redeemer like an immense crown of victory. This unspeakably touching spectacle afforded the soul of the Lord, who had allowed all kinds of human suffering to pass over Him, some strength and consolation. Ah, He so dearly loved His brethren, His creatures, that willingly He would have suffered all for the purchase of one soul! As these visions referred to the future, they appeared hovering above the earth.
But now these consoling pictures disappeared, and the angels displayed before His eyes all the scenes of His approaching Passion. They appeared quite close to the earth, for the time was near at hand. There were many angelic actors in these scenes. I beheld everyone close to Jesus, from the kiss of Judas to His own last words upon the Cross. I saw all, all there again, as I am accustomed to see it in my meditations upon the Passion. The treason of Judas, the flight of the disciples, the mockery and sufferings before Annas and Caiaphas, Peter’s denial, Pilate’s tribunal, Herod’s derision, the scourging and crowning with thorns, the condemnation to death, the sinking under the weight of the Cross, the meeting with the Blessed Virgin and her swooning, the jeers of the executioners against her, Veronica’s handkerchief, the cruel nailing to the Cross and the raising of the same, the insults of the Pharisees, the sorrows of Mary, of Magdalen, and of John, and the piercing of His side—in a word, all, all, clearly, significantly, and in their minutest details passed before Him. All the gestures, all the sentiments, and words of His future tormentors, I saw that the Lord beheld and heard in alarm and anguish of soul. He willingly accepted all, He willingly submitted to all through love for man. He was most painfully troubled at His shameful stripping on the Cross, which He endured to atone for the immodesty of men, and He implored that He might retain a girdle at least upon the Cross, but even this was not allowed Him. I saw, however, that He was to receive help, not from the executioners, but from a certain good person.
Jesus saw and felt also His Blessed Mother’s sorrow and anguish of heart. With two holy women in the Valley of Josaphat, she was in uninterrupted union with Him by her interior participation in His sufferings and agony on Mount Olivet.
At the close of these visions of the Passion, Jesus sank prostrate on His face like one in the throes of death. The angels and the visions disappeared, and the bloody sweat poured from Him more copiously than before. I saw it soaking His yellowish garment and moistening the earth around. It was now dark in the grotto.
And now I saw an angel sweeping down toward Him. In stature he was taller, in figure more distinct and more like a human being than any I had yet seen. He appeared in long, flowing robes, like those of a priest, ornamented with fringe. He carried in his hands, and before his breast, a small vessel shaped like the chalice used at the Last Supper. Just above it floated a small oval morsel, about the size of a bean, which glowed with a reddish light. The angel hovered over the place where Jesus was lying and stretched forth his hand to Him. When Jesus arose, he placed the shining morsel in His mouth and gave Him to drink from the little luminous chalice. After that he disappeared.
Jesus had now voluntarily accepted the chalice of His Passion, and He received new strength. He remained in the grotto for a few minutes longer, absorbed in prayer and thanksgiving. He was indeed still under the pressure of mental suffering, but supernaturally strengthened to such a degree that, without fear or anxiety, He was able to walk with a firm step to His disciples. Though pale and exhausted, His bearing was erect and resolute. He had wiped His face with a linen cloth and with it smoothed down His hair which, moist with the blood and sweat of His agony, hung down in matted strands.
As He left the grotto, I saw the moon still with the remarkable-looking spot upon it and the circle around it; but its light, as well as that of the stars, was different from that which they gave forth during that great agony of Jesus. It seemed now to be more natural.
When Jesus returned to the disciples, He found them, as at first, lying on their side near the wall of the terrace, their heads covered, and asleep. The Lord said to them: “This is not the time to sleep. Ye should arise and pray, for behold the hour is at hand, and the Son of Man shall be betrayed into the hands of sinners. Arise, let us go! Behold, the traitor is approaching! Oh, it were better for him had he never been born!” The Apostles sprang up affrighted and looked around anxiously. They had scarcely recovered themselves, when Peter exclaimed vehemently: “Master, I will call the others, that we may defend Thee!” But Jesus pointed out to them at some distance in the valley, though still on the other side of the brook Cedron, a band of armed men approaching with torches. He told the Apostles that one of that band had betrayed Him. This they looked upon as impossible. Jesus repeated this and several other things with calm composure, again exhorted them to console His Mother, and said: “Let us go to meet them! I shall deliver Myself without resistance into the hands of My enemies.” With these words, He left the Garden of Olives with the three Apostles and went out to meet the Myrmidons on the road that separated it from the Garden of Gethsemani.
The Blessed Virgin, Magdalen, and Salome, accompanied by some of the disciples who had seen the approach of the soldiers, left the valley of Josaphat and returned to the house of Mary Marcus. Jesus’ enemies came by a shorter route than that by which He had come from the Coenaculum.
The grotto in which Jesus prayed that night was not the one in which He usually prayed on Mount Olivet. The latter was a more distant cavern of the mountain. It was there that He prayed on the day upon which He cursed the fig tree. He was then in great affliction of spirit, and He prayed with outstretched arms, leaning upon a rock. The impression of His form and hands remained upon the stone, and later on became objects of veneration, although it was not clearly known upon what occasion the marks were made. I have frequently beheld such impressions left upon stone by the Prophets of the Old Law, by Jesus, Mary, some of the Apostles, the body of St. Catherine of Alexandria on Mount Sinai, and by some other saints. They did not appear to be deep, nor were the lines very clearly defined. They resembled the marks that might be made by pressing upon a piece of solid dough.