The Agony in the Garden

The Agony in the Garden is the first of the Sorrowful Mysteries of the Holy Rosary. It commemorates the prayer of Christ in the Garden of Gethsemane on the night of Holy Thursday, after the Last Supper and before his arrest. The narrative is recorded in all three Synoptic Gospels: Matthew 26:36-46, Mark 14:32-42, and Luke 22:39-46.

The mystery

After the Last Supper, Christ went with his disciples to the Mount of Olives, to a garden called Gethsemane (the Aramaic name means "oil press"). Taking with him Saints Peter, James, and John, he withdrew a short distance to pray. The Synoptic accounts converge on three petitions, expressed in the words "Father, if you are willing, take this cup away from me; still, not my will but yours be done." Saint Luke alone records the detail that "his sweat became like drops of blood falling on the ground" (Luke 22:44), a phenomenon known to medical literature as hematidrosis, attested in extreme cases of psychological distress.

Three times Christ returned to the disciples and found them asleep, "from grief" in Saint Luke's telling, "for their eyes were heavy" in Saint Mark's. The mystery concludes with the arrival of Judas Iscariot at the head of an armed group, the kiss of betrayal, and the arrest of Christ.

Meditation on sorrow for sin

The traditional spiritual fruit of the Agony in the Garden is sorrow for sin. The mystery presents Christ in the depths of his human nature, voluntarily contemplating the entire weight of the sins of humanity that he was about to bear in his Passion. Saint John Henry Newman, in his Discourses Addressed to Mixed Congregations, observes that the agony of Christ in the garden was the foreknowledge, fully present to his human soul, of every sin that would ever be committed in human history, and his free acceptance of the bearing of all of them.¹

The Catechism of the Catholic Church teaches that this prayer of Christ in the garden, "not my will but yours be done," is the prayer that opens the way to the Cross and the redemption.²

Praying the Agony in the Garden

To pray the first Sorrowful Mystery: announce "The first Sorrowful Mystery, the Agony in the Garden," pray an Our Father, ten Hail Marys while meditating on Christ's prayer in Gethsemane, and conclude with a Glory Be and the Fatima Prayer.

The Sorrowful Mysteries are traditionally prayed on Tuesdays and Fridays. They are also commonly prayed during Lent and on the Sacred Triduum, particularly on Good Friday. For the next mystery, see the Scourging at the Pillar.

Sources

Footnotes

1. Saint John Henry Newman, Discourses Addressed to Mixed Congregations, "The Mental Sufferings of Our Lord in His Passion." ↩

2. Catechism of the Catholic Church, paragraph 612, on the agony at Gethsemane. ↩