A synthesis of the commentary of Cornelius à Lapide' (1567 - 1637) on the Passion of Our Lord from St. Matthew's Gospel compiled by a priest and friend of Rorate Caeli.
Gethsemane
Ver. 36. Then cometh Jesus with them unto a place called Gethsemane, &c. Gethsemane is the valley of oil or fatness, or more precisely, the oil-press, for pressing the oil from the olives which grew on Mount Olivet… Chrust retired there (1) for retirement and prayer, and to be free from distraction; (2) to show that He did not fly from death, but rather sought for it, for the place was well known to the traitor; and (3) to show that He suffered out of pure love and compassion for men. For oil is the type of compassion; and as oil was in that spot pressed from the olives, so in His agony was the Blood of Christ pressed forth, with which we are refreshed as with oil, are anointed and are fed. See Cant. i. 3.
…..above it Mount Olivet, the place of the ascension; humility and
exaltation being fitly associated together, as is oft the case with God’s
elect. ….and He began His Passion in a garden as expiating the sin of Adam,
which was committed in a garden. For he ruined therein himself and all his
descendants, and subjected them to sin, death, and hell. And all these did
Christ expiate in a garden by the agony He there endured. As in the Canticle,
“I raised thee up under the apple tree: there was thy mother defiled: there was
she violated that bare thee” (Cant. viii. 5). Christ therefore in the garden
restored us to Paradise, from which we had been expelled by Adam, and planted
there the garden of His Church, verdant with the anguish of mortification, the
saffron of charity, the spikenard of humility, the lilies of virgins, the roses
of martyrs, the chaplets of doctors; for “a garden enclosed is my sister, a garden
enclosed, a fountain sealed. Thy sendings forth (shoots) are of Paradise”
(Cant. iv. 12, 13).
Ver. 37. And He took with Him Peter and the two sons of Zebedee,
&c. He took only these three to be witnesses of His sorrow and agony, lest
the other Apostles should be troubled and scandalised thereby. Moreover, Christ
most relied on these three as His special intimates, and also because it was
but fitting that they who had seen the glory of His transfiguration should
contemplate His agony, and learn that the way to glory is through agony and
suffering, and that the way of Calvary and the Cross leads to the Mount and
glory of Tabor.
And began to be sorrowful and very heavy. Of His own free will, and not by compulsion. He began to be so sore
distressed as to be almost lifeless and beside Himself. “My soul is exceeding
sorrowful,” He says, “even unto death.” S. Luke calls it “an agony,” like those
who are at the last struggle with death. Vulg. in Mark reads “taedet,”
for sorrow makes a man weary of life. S. Mark adds, to be stupefied (ε̉κθαμβείσθαι),
for excessive fear has this effect, as a lion stupefies other animals with its
roar. Note, first, that Christ had true sorrow. For though from the moment of
His conception He enjoyed the vision of God, as hypostatically united to Him,
and thus enjoyed the highest happiness, He was yet supremely sorrowful, God
supernaturally enlarging the capacity of His soul, that it might experience the
highest joy and the deepest sorrow at the same time. This is the general
opinion of theologians, …. Christ was both on His journey and had reached the
end (viator et comprehensor). In the one character He was full of
sorrow, in the other full of joy. But even when on the way He had both the
greatest joy and the greatest sorrow in His Passion. He was sorrowful in His
lower nature, since it was painful; He rejoiced in His higher nature, since it
was the will of God, and ordained for man’s salvation.
2. This sorrow was not only “in His feelings, but also in His will (at
least in its lower part), which naturally regards that which is for itself good
as life…, and hates the contrary. This is clear from His own prayer, “Father,
not what I will, but what Thou wilt.” He naturally wished to he saved from
death. As in Luke, “Not my will, but Thine be done.”
3. The primary cause of His sorrow was not the flight of His Apostles,
which He foresaw, but the vivid apprehension of His approaching Passion and
death, as is plain from His prayer, “Let this cup pass from Me.” For Christ
foresaw all the torments, one by one, which the Jews would inflict on Him, and
fully entered into, and weighed the magnitude and bitterness of His several
sorrows, so as to seem to be already suffering them, even to the shedding
of His blood. For Christ doubtless wished to atone by His sorrow for the
pleasure which Adam had in eating the forbidden fruit, and which sinners now
experience in their sins.
There were, moreover, other grounds of sorrow, which He experienced in
the highest degree from the very moment of His conception to His death.
1. First, the sins of all men, which He undertook to atone
for, and thus make satisfaction for the injury done to His Father. For the soul
of Christ saw them all in God, and manifested for them the greatest sorrow and
compunction, as though they had been His own. For He saw how great was their
gravity, how the majesty of God was offended, and consequently what wrong had
been done to Him. All which elicited condign and commensurate sorrow. So He
says Ps. xxii.
2. The second was His foreseeing all the pains which
martyrs, confessors, virgins, married people also would suffer in their several
ways. Prelates too and pastors in governing the faithful; the faithful in
withstanding the temptations of the world, the flesh, and the devil. All which
sorrows Christ generally and severally mentally took upon Him, that by His
sorrow He might obtain for them from God the Father grace and strength to bear
and overcome them all. For He loves His children as Himself and feels for their
affliction. See Matt. xxv. 35, 40.
3. The third was the ingratitude of men. For He foresaw
that His Passion would be of use to but very few, and that the many would be
lost through their own negligence and ingratitude. As the poet sings;
4. The fourth was the affliction of His mother; for the
sorrows of the Son pierced, as a sword, the soul of the mother, and from her
were reflected on Christ. For His greatest sorrow was that His mother suffered
so grievously on His account. All other sorrows Christ suppressed and overcame,
manifesting this only to His disciples. Now, observe this sorrow of Christ was
not by compulsion, or involuntary, so as to prevent the exercise of reason, but
was freely undergone by Christ. Whence theologians say that in Christ were not
passions, but their first suggestions (propassiones);3 for all His affections resulted from the ordering of His reason
and His own free choice. For to this all the inferior powers were perfectly
subjected, both in Adam and in Christ. For original righteousness, which was in
Christ as in Adam before his fall, required this. See S. Augustine, de Civ.
xiv. 9, and Damascene (de Fid. iii. 23). Nothing was compulsory in
Christ, for of His own will He hungered, was fearful, and was sad.
Händel: Messiah - 26a. Surely He hath borne our griefs - Gardiner
5. S. Luke adds, that He sweated blood, and was comforted
by an angel; while Isaiah (liii. 3) calls Him a man of sorrows.
But the final and moral grounds of this were manifold. S. Chrysostom
gives as the 1st: “To show that He took on Himself true flesh, He endures human
sufferings.” So Jerome and Origen; and S. Leo (Serm. vii. de
Pass.) says, He was despised in our humility, made sad with our sadness,
and crucified with our pain.” 2nd S. Gregory (Mor. xxiv. 17), “As
His death was approaching, He set forth in His own person our struggles of
mind, for we fear greatly the approach of death.” …
The fifth was to cure by
His sorrow our sloth, weakness, fear, &c. As Isaiah (liii. 4) says,
“Surely He hath borne our griefs and carried our sorrows.” And
accordingly our best remedy in all these trials is to look at Christ in His
agony, that by the pattern and merits of the agony He endured in the garden He
may heal our sorrow. As S. Leo (Serm. iv. de Pass.) says,
“He healed our weaknesses by partaking them, and drove away the fear of
suffering punishment by undergoing it Himself: our Lord trembled with our fear,
that He might take on Himself our weakness, and robe our weakness with His
strength.” It was, again, to remove the dread of difficulty, which occurs in
every virtuous act. For this dread keeps many back from virtue and holiness.
Whenever, therefore, any difficulty or temptation assails, let us strengthen
ourselves by meditating on the agony of Christ; for if He overcame His by the
struggle and bloody sweat, we ought also to overcome ours by manly resistance.
See Heb. xii. 1.
