In the Garden...

In the Garden...

By:  Eric Gajewski

Love is greater than the trial...
Let us do our best to be compassionate and help each other in the carrying of crosses

I thank you all for the continued prayers as my health the last week or so has been quite poor.  As you know Scripture says “when we are weakest we are actually the strongest”.  This is because Christ lives in us.  He is the one who issues the Cross and therefore gives the corresponding grace to that particular trial or affliction.  Yes, the past few days have been rough one night without any sleep however many of you are carrying the Cross and perhaps heavier ones.  Be encouraged.  We all must be in the garden with Jesus.  In my suffering the past few days I put myself there next to Christ who was under such duress that is caused Him to sweat blood.  That is truly humbling I could not imagine His blood pressure at that time.  I have recorded some seriously high blood pressures even over the past week but I could not imagine that suffering He endured for us.  Love is greater than the trial.  And what if we avoid the trial?  Can we grow in Selfless Love?

If God Loves us He will give us a cross.  No man can follow Christ without one.  Do not look to those who seemingly do not have one because we truly do not know their interior state.  We can be suffering much with a smile on our face.  The true Saints loved their Cross because they knew the power of this transformation.  They knew the heavier the cross the greater the growth in Selfless Love.  God will often come to take away your health.  We cannot even cling to our health because this will impede our love for Jesus.  He wants you to be detached from even perfect health.  Take a look at the Saints yet again for verification.  Marie Julie under all the stress and duress she was under lived to be 90!  Where crosses are denied love is denied because we truly love our self over God if this is what we choose.

A Victim of Love.  God is looking for men void of self Whom He can live in and suffer through them.  It is hard to comprehend all the souls going to hell but perhaps if we can each help a little we can save a decent amount of souls from ultimately entering eternal damnation.  We can use holy suffering to advance our own souls but also we can help the souls in Purgatory.  Love has victims.  Christ is our Victim and if we profess to be in His Body does His Body not suffer still?  Is the Church herself not suffering these days?  As God cranks up the dial on the heat of suffering so is the “self consumed”.  If you were to boil a little pot of water over time it would simply evaporate.  So if you find yourself suffering for long periods of time you can be assured that He is trying to evaporate the self in you.  Christ cant live in something already alive (mystically) and thus we must be dead.  Dead to the world and detached from all things.  This is what it means in part to be an eagle.

Agony and pain in the desert of Lent.  Yes, we must all pass through the desert before we can experience the “Promised Land” of spiritual Oneness with our God.  If you find yourself going around in circles in this desert not making any progress it is not Gods fault but it is your own.  Are you complaining and murmuring which is attributed to self?  God will keep you on that circle path until you are fully loosened from the self.  No man can stand in His Presence who is not yet wholly consumed by His Fire hence the need of Purgatory.  If the pain wounds your ego than you are alive.  Having said that, of course, pain will cause us to cry and reach out.  Even Our Lord cried therefore do not be so brazen to think you can or ought not.  The loneliness of this desert is similar to the loneliness Our Lord felt in the Garden.  I have been given a glimpse of this over the years at times and it is truly heart wrenching.  Scripture says “He looked for one to comfort Him and He found none!”.  This is truly heartbreaking therefore, my good friends, in the days ahead be sure to unite your suffering to Christ.  Unify your heart His and recite Faith over fear thy will be done.  You are truly not alone in the desert for Christ is with you.  The Wind which speaks is evidence of this.  And when the night of the desert approaches look to the heavens to see the full moon which is representative of Our Lady.  Yea, suffering drives us inward to a place many have never been before because they have lived such selfish lives for so long.  It is meant to be lonely because it is here you find Him alone.

In the Garden.  Everyone had left and here the Passion began.  Our lives must model this as there is no escaping the loneliness and stress of the garden.  Will we sweat blood?  Unless given some extraordinary grace to do so we will not but we can share in this suffering in our own “little way”.  This is where it all began and thus how can you get to the apex of the Cross if you will not first share in the loneliness of the Garden with Jesus?  His closest ad fallen asleep just as our friends and family will.  It will seem like no one hears us or is around us.  Darkness ill close in but it is in this darkness that the Light is more seen.  In order for us to move away from selfish surface living peoples we need to be driven into this state.  We must first be contemplative’s before we can go out and truly make an impact upon others.  You cant give to others what you first don’t have.  And if you avoid the Garden there is not hopping over to the next suffering.  If you will attempt to escape this you assuredly are not ready for your mystical death wherein it will seem like you are about to die.  Love is greater than the trial and all the while you are in the Palm of God’s hand.  You are not out of His reach nor is He on the phone not paying attention to your suffering.  He is the very one who handed you this Cross in the first place.  The faster you detach from self and allow the purification to take place the faster the trial will end.  Do not resist and suffer with a smile.  At first it will be hard but over time suffering will become sweet because you will share very intimately in the Cross with your Beloved and the Fire will rage on within. Amen

Press play and listen as you meditate

“In the Garden”

Darkness falls upon the soul

All loneliness closes in calling us to fear

Hell seemingly is our Home

As we cry within but no one seemingly sees the tears

No, dear faithful, He IS STILL here

For what he has done so must we too

For the Promised Land is still far off

And much labor left to do

When all have seemingly left our side

We look to His as now we are all alone

This is your new home says faith

As now, in the Garden, you abide

It is the self you came with

It is with Christ alone you must leave

It is here you must suffer in union with His Heart

Right beneath this Gardens great tree

O’ disciple, there is no running

But only conceding to His Will, counting nothing as a loss

For He who will not endure the Garden

Assuredly will not walk in His footsteps and endure the Cross

For He is the Way the Truth and the Life!

Therefore do nothing in the trial in spite

Because there is no greater agony than being without Christ