Any good Catholic knows that we all strive to be Saints. We are woefully inadequate and the only hope we have lies in God's Grace and our meager cooperation, but it's the goal we have. I'm surrounding by good friends and family that constantly point to my Saintly traits, but humility, embarrassment at the being complimented or some other part of my personality tends to leave me more mindful of how much I fail to emulate the Saints, than how I do emulate them. But, last Friday I spent some time in Eucharistic Adoration reading the Gospel of St. Matthew. In particular I was reading Chapter 26 and the account of our Lord's agony in the garden. While I was reading and reflecting my thoughts were focused on His agony, His knowledge of just how many times and how many ways I was going to reject Him, yet He was still going to suffer to redeem me for all those sins I had yet to commit. Yet again I was thinking just how much I am unlike the Saints.
After that reflection, I returned to my knees and focused my attention on being present with Jesus in Gethsemane, not just focusing on His Real Presence there with me, but connecting myself to Him at the moment of that agony and his and my awareness of how little I deserved His sacrifice but how much He loves me to still be my Savior. As I'm resting in His presence I contemplating being with Him in the garden my mind starts to drift off to sleep. And as I jolt myself awake the first thought to enter my mind is, "So you could not watch with me one hour?"
And I suppress a chuckle as I realize, I do share something in common with Peter, James and John... Maybe I'm doing OK... At least it's assuring, knowing that in my weakness and desperate need for His grace I am not alone and the company I keep in my weakness is pretty inspiring.
