The beginning of violence is the end to dialogue.

As we enter into the holiest week of the Church year, our Gospel is the account of the Lord’s Passion as told by the evangelist Luke.  The whole Gospel leads us to a reflection on the meaning of the Lord’s death.  The Passion account speaks for itself; it doesn’t need a lengthy homily.

I would simply like to reflect with you on one scene from the Garden of Gethsemane:

Jesus said to his disciples:  “Pray that you may not undergo the test”…Then after a short time of prayer, Jesus than asked his disciples:  “Why are you sleeping?  Get up and pray that you may not undergo the test.”

When Jesus tells his disciples in the Garden of Gethsemane to pray lest you enter into temptation, he is inviting them to stay in touch with their spiritual center.  Prayer focuses us in our relationship with Jesus – our union with God.  This is our spiritual center.  When we are a people of faith, a people of prayer, we indeed have an inner strength that resists the tests and temptations of life – the temptations of power, of greed, of lust, of selfishness, of pride, of violence, whatever it is.

In the Passion account, the disciples fall asleep.  The meaning here is that they have lost touch with their spiritual center.  As a result, they are overwhelmed and overcome.  The world is too much for them.

What Jesus says to them is literally a wake-up call.  “Why do you sleep?”  He says:  “Rise, pray, lest you enter into temptation.”

For the disciples, the temptation is about to arrive.  A crowd armed with swords and clubs came into the Gethsemane led by Judas.  The disciples who had fallen asleep initially now ask Jesus if they should strike with the sword, but they do not wait for an answer.  They do not do what He tells them to do (pray); and even when they ask for advice, they go off on their own.  They cut off the ear of the servant of the high priest.  The message here is that the beginning of violence is the end to dialogue.  Once we start to fight, we no longer have ears to hear each other.  In this account, Jesus heals the ear and restores dialogue and forgiveness and reconciliation.  This is the message of Jesus.  Forgiveness and Reconciliation and Love are the meaning of the death of Jesus.

As we enter into these days of Holy Week, the message of Jesus to his disciples in 2016 is the same.  “Pray, lest you enter into temptation.”  Keep in touch with our spiritual center so that the temptations, the fears, the stresses of life do not overwhelm us.  The danger for us as for the first disciples is to fall asleep and lose our connection with our spiritual center.  Our spiritual center is our relationship with Christ Jesus.

May each of us during these days of Holy Week be people of prayer focusing on the spiritual center of our lives.