Imitate Jesus in Gethsemane, accepting God's will, Pope urges faithful
February 01, 2012
Continuing his series of weekly talks on the prayer life of Christ, Pope Benedict XVI spoke on February 1 about the prayer the Jesus offered in the Garden of Gethsemane.
The Pope remarked that while the Gospels relate occasions when Jesus sought to be alone in prayer, in this case He wanted the disciples with Him. His invitation to Peter, James, and John was “an invitation to all disciples to follow Him on the path of the Cross,” the Pontiff said.
As He approached his Sacrifice, Jesus felt “all the horror that man feels at the prospect of his own death, its inexorable certainty and the perception of the burden of evil which affects our lives,” the Pope said. But more than that, He also felt “the distress of the Son of God Who sees the terrible accumulation of evil He must take upon Himself, in order to overcome it and deprive it of power.”
At Gethsemane, Jesus finally prayed that the Father’s will might be done. Pope Benedict said that all Christians should take the same approach in daily prayer, asking that God’s will be done in their lives. “This is a prayer we must repeat every day,” he said; “because it is not always easy to entrust oneself to the will of God.”
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