Why November Offers Us Time to Remember Christ's Agony

“Quick now, here, now, always-
A condition of complete simplicity
(Costing not less than everything)
And all shall be well and
All manner of thing shall be well
When the tongues of flame are in-folded
Into the crowned knot of fire
And the fire and the rose are one.”
― T.S. Eliot, Four Quartets

In November, standing at the threshold of Advent, we're given a little time to discern how we wish to step into the season of waiting and hope. While the approaching liturgical season ultimately helps us to prepare for the coming of the Christ child and the joy of Christmas, we can remember that our salvation came at a price.

So many saints urge us to meditate on the Passion of Christ not only for our spiritual benefit, but to deepen our awe and gratitude for our Saviour. They remind us that Jesus did not approach His Passion with reluctance but with love. The Psalmist proclaims:

“He hath set his tabernacle in the sun: and he as a bridegroom coming out of his bride chamber, Hath rejoiced as a giant to run the way.” (Psalm 18:6)

But here’s a question for us to ponder:

Was the physical pain of Jesus’ passion and crucifixion actually His greatest suffering?

Many saints and spiritual writers say the answer is, most likely, no. Consider the darkness that Jesus deliberately takes upon Himself as He leaves Jerusalem after the Last Supper, climbs the hill, and enters the shadowy Garden of Gethsemane:

“My soul is sorrowful even unto death…”. -Jesus (Matthew 26:38)

Reflecting on this aspect of His suffering before Advent helps us enter the season of waiting and preparation with greater humility, gratitude, and awareness of the price of our redemption. Perhaps it also allows us to experience the Nativity of Our Lord at Christmas in a new way. Let us reflect on four aspects of Christ's hidden agony in the Garden.

1. Beyond the Physical Pain

As mentioned, we often focus on the physical brutality of Good Friday, and rightly so. The cross is a powerful symbol of Christ's love for us. But what if His greatest suffering wasn't the nails or the thorns, but something deeper, something hidden? What if the deepest wounds were not in His body, but in His heart? If we haven't really contemplated this before, now is a good time to do so.

"The agony, a pain of the soul, not of the body, was the first act of His tremendous sacrifice…". -St. John Henry Newman, Discourse 16: Mental Sufferings of Our Lord in His Passion.

2. The Sorrow of Gethsemane

Imagine Jesus in the quiet of the garden, under the olive trees. No soldiers, no crowds, just the weight of the world on His shoulders. He knew what was to come: the betrayal, the denial, the abandonment. Jesus came to the Garden to embrace the totality of human sin...past, present, and future. Every betrayal, every broken promise, every act of violence or unkindness that would ever stain human history, He took upon His sacred shoulders. The sins committed against us. The sins we have committed. From the gravest evils to the smallest failings, He bore them all in a spiritual agony.

3. The Weight of Our Choices

In that quiet garden, Jesus held each of us in His heart. He saw our struggles, our failings, and our deepest regrets. And yet, He chose to walk the path of the cross for us. He chose to embrace that suffering out of a love that is beyond our understanding. His agony was not just for the sins of the world, but for our sins, for the times we have turned away from His love.

And He does so with perfect intention and self-command. The shadow does not creep up on Him. He goes to meet it. This discourse from St. John Henry Newman (the newest Doctor of the Church) profoundly helps us to contemplate this truth:

You see how deliberately He acts; He comes to a certain spot; and then, giving the word of command, and withdrawing the support of the God-head from His soul, distress, terror, and dejection at once rush in upon it. Thus He walks forth into a mental agony with as definite an action as if it were some bodily torture, the fire or the wheel.

There, then, in that most awful hour, knelt the Saviour of the world, putting off the defences of His divinity, dismissing His reluctant Angels, who in myriads were ready at His call, and opening His arms, baring His breast, sinless as He was, to the assault of His foe,—of a foe whose breath was a pestilence, and whose embrace was an agony.

There He knelt, motionless and still, while the vile and horrible fiend clad His spirit in a robe steeped in all that is hateful and heinous in human crime, which clung close round His heart, and filled His conscience, and found its way into every sense and pore of His mind, and spread over Him a moral leprosy, till He almost felt Himself to be that which He never could be, and which His foe would fain have made Him.

Oh, the horror, when He looked, and did not know Himself, and felt as a foul and loathsome sinner, from His vivid perception of that mass of corruption which poured over His head and ran down even to the skirts of His garments! -St. John Henry Newman, Discourse 16: Mental Sufferings of Our Lord in His Passion

4. An Invitation to Keep Watch

We can take a moment to sit with Jesus in the garden, to “keep watch” with Him in prayer. His disciples were “sleeping for sorrow,” and we are like them so often! But now, let us be awake! We can offer Him our gratitude for His sacrifice, which, in the words of T.S. Eliot, cost "not less than everything," and we can ask for the grace to truly prepare our hearts this Advent. Perhaps, at times of prayer in Advent, we might recall the words of St. John Henry Newman above. Let these words and our spiritual practices this Advent prepare us to celebrate well the joyous nativity at Christmas.

"In that agony, He saw every sin of all humanity, and He also saw every act of kindness, every pure soul, every moment of contrition, every prayer of love. These were His consolations.”
(The Life of Christ, Fulton Sheen)

A Prayer for November

Jesus, as we enter this season of preparation, help us to remember the depth of Your love for us. Help us to consider your Passion often, and to always be grateful for the gift of Your sacrifice for us. Help us to prepare our hearts in this coming Advent, so that we may receive You with joy at Christmas. Amen