Paul Thies: Well, Bishop Schneider and Mother Miriam, thank you both so much for joining me today. I’m really looking forward to talking with both of you. It’s always a joy, of course, talking with you individually, but having you both together as we unpack the Agony in the Garden from our Lord’s Passion is a real blessing. So thank you both so much for being with me today.
To start, my first question is for you, Your Excellency. The question is, when Jesus first enters the Garden of Gethsemane, we read that he brings all of his apostles with him. He tells them to stay, but then he brings Peter, James, and John in a bit further and tells those three to stay, and he goes even further in to pray himself. Can you comment on why the gospel writers wanted us to understand that progression, those steps? I’m assuming there’s significance there, but would you be able to comment on that?
Bishop Schneider: We have a similar situation at Mount Tabor, the transfiguration of our Lord. He also did not take all twelve apostles, only three of them. In special moments of extraordinary importance, the Lord always takes Peter because he is appointed the rock of the Church, and the other two apostles are closer to Peter as the two witnesses. So the Lord always takes these three, two or three, according to biblical tradition, also for the importance of witnesses. They are specific eyewitnesses of his glory at the transfiguration and then of his deepest suffering in the garden.
Paul Thies: It’s interesting that you mentioned witnesses, because Mother, as we get further into the story, during the Agony in the Garden, Jesus is isolated. He goes back to look for the apostles again and again, and he keeps finding them asleep. Can you speak to the isolation of our Lord and what lessons it imparts for us, especially during times of trial?
Mother Miriam: I think isolation during times of trial, if we trust God, helps us grow more than at any other time. Bishop Schneider mentioned the three at Mount Tabor, and of course, it’s the same three now. I wonder if our Lord, in His humanity, I’ll tell you, Paul, when I first read that years ago, I thought, how could Jesus forgive me for this? Even dear Bishop, how could he be so weak? He’s God. How could he do that? How could he cry out? How could he need them? How could he need us? How could he need anybody? God. But I didn’t quite grasp, I knew he became a man, but I said, yes, he is a man, but he’s God. He’s the God man. Indeed, he was tempted at every point this week, yet without sin. In fact, he was tempted in his full humanity without ever giving up his Godhead. When we are tempted, that’s where sin comes from. If we give in to temptation, we sin, and we escape the temptation. Jesus never sinned. He suffered to an extent that none of us ever have or ever will. And I wondered, even Your Excellency, as you talked about Tabor, they slept then too, and they saw, as you said, His glory.
So he may have thought, by the garden, don’t you know me now? Are you still sleeping? Maybe he understood weariness might have worn them down, but maybe he hoped love would keep their eyes open. For me, it’s a fantastic witness and lesson. Nothing ever happens to us without God allowing it. Whether He arranges it, allows it, or whether it comes from the devil, if it happens, He allows it. If we feel isolated, in extreme loneliness, unheard, ignored, opposed, or desperately alone, that is, in my mind, a tremendous gift from God. It happened to me, and I realized I did not have the human support I had relied on. God must want me all to Himself, and it has been a tremendous grace. To be isolated is a gift from God that allows us to draw closer to Him and learn to walk with Him. One more word: when wives feel unheard by their husbands, when they feel he doesn’t understand me, she doesn’t understand me, he doesn’t listen. We are human; we fail. That is the time to draw near to God and learn to walk with Him so our happiness and consolation do not depend on someone else or their love or faithfulness, but on our understanding and trust in God’s love for us.
Paul Thies: Yeah, and then in those times of isolation, we draw closer to the cross. As I was listening to you, Mother, I couldn’t help reflecting, and I think a lot of people do, on my own times of isolation. But I was also quick to think of the times that I have isolated others, where I have been guilty of detraction, speaking about people, and harboring bad thoughts. And then it’s the uncomfortable thought of, as you did to one of them, so I did to Jesus. Nobody likes to think that, but that is the truth: as we do to others, we do to Christ.
Your Excellency, speaking about sleeping, of course, there is a lot in this episode that occurs three times. Jesus finds the apostles asleep three times. Can you speak to what that says about sin, human weakness and frailty, but also perseverance in the state of grace or lack thereof, that he kept finding the apostles asleep?
Bishop Schneider: Exactly. When the Lord found them asleep, he spoke these words, “Be vigilant, watch, because the spirit is strong, but the flesh is weak.” The Lord admonishes us all. The first very important task of the Christian life is to be vigilant, to watch, not to sleep spiritually. It is very dangerous in our lives to become indifferent, lazy, or lukewarm. This is an image of sleep. It is not necessarily a mortal sin, but the apostles fell asleep in the Garden of Gethsemane. It was not directly a mortal sin because they were tired, but there was a lack of vigilance and a lack of true love for the Lord. Even in these moments, they saw that the Lord was there, but they forgot him.
Sometimes in our lives, we believe the Lord is present, but we forget him and are spiritually lukewarm. We must always watch. As Peter says, “Brethren, be vigilant, because the devil is going around devouring you.” We have to ask the Lord to help us not to sleep, to be vigilant in our lives. The Lord also said to Peter, “Could you not at least one hour be with me?” The Lord sometimes asks for the minimum. According to tradition, the Lord spent three hours in prayer in His agony, but he did not directly ask them to watch all three hours, only at least one hour. They could not even give that one hour, falling asleep repeatedly. This is a lesson for us to give the Lord at least something in our day, attention in our time, in our lives, during the Holy Mass. When we are accustomed to praying regularly and being faithful, we receive graces to resist temptations and the weakness of the flesh.
Paul Thies: It’s interesting. I was meditating on the figures of the saints, Peter, James, and John. St Peter, of course, denied Jesus but repented. He is an excellent example of human frailty. But it’s interesting to think about James and John in this episode. James, in his letter, warns that faith without works is dead. Yet here, in his humanity, he may not have lived up to that, as you said, Your Excellency, about giving Jesus even just the minimum. St John went on to be the only apostle to stand at the foot of the cross. In his youth, but in his love, he was there with our Blessed Mother.
That fortitude must have taken great courage to face the potential condemnation of staying with Jesus all the way to the end, even to the cross. It is a great example that even the best of us, the saints, the apostles, who knew Jesus the best, sometimes fall short. God in His mercy loves all of us and understands, but He wants us to do better. Your Excellency, in the Gospel of Luke, St Luke recounts that an angel appeared in the garden to strengthen Jesus. I always thought that might relate to what Mother was saying: He is God. Why would He need that kind of moral support? Can you speak to the role of the angel, the angel coming to minister to Christ, and what that means for us in our distress?
Bishop Schneider: Yes. First, the role of angels is very important in the history of salvation. God sends His angels at the Annunciation. We see angels in Bethlehem, in the desert during the Lord’s temptation. They served Him. We see angels ministering in Gethsemane, on the morning of the resurrection, and at the ascension into heaven. We see angels protecting Peter from prison. Angels are important in salvation, in the life of the Church, and in heaven. In the book of Revelation, we see a beautiful vision of the heavenly Jerusalem, angels together with the glorified saints forming one holy city of God. Concretely, why did the Lord want to be strengthened by the angel? First, to show His true humanity. He needed help as a baby in Bethlehem, help from Our Lady, help from St Joseph when persecuted by Herod. In Gethsemane, after Peter struck the servant, Jesus said He could ask the Father and receive twelve legions of angels. He could, but He renounced this.
This demonstrates the extent and cost of our redemption: He wanted to drink the full chalice of suffering. At the same time, as a true human being, He needed consolation, which the angel brought. Spiritual authors explain that the angel gave Him the chalice of strength, representing all prayers, acts of atonement, reparation, and souls in the Church until the end of time. Symbolically, our prayers and acts of reparation are gathered in that moment, consoling the Lord. The angel’s gift strengthened Him to accept the sufferings of the cross for our sake.
Paul Thies: That’s beautiful. Now, Mother, Your Excellency mentioned the cup of suffering. Another significant account in threes is that Jesus prays three times for the cup to pass by him, but He is also quick to say, nevertheless, not my will, but Thine, meaning, our Father in heaven, Thine will be done. Can you speak to the importance, Mother, of the cup being prayed about three times? I was also wondering if there is some relation to the Last Supper. Some authors, like Dr. Scott Hahn, point out that He had three cups but did not have the fourth cup until He was on the cross, and then He said, “It is finished.” Could there be a relation between the Passover, the three Passover cups at the Last Supper, and the three times He prays for the cup to pass by Him in Gethsemane?
Mother Miriam: Paul, I have to say, I don’t know the answer to that. The cup, throughout the Old Testament, is generally a cup of wrath. The Passover has four cups, as Scott Hahn explains. I can’t say it is wrong. It makes sense to me, and it’s exciting that He took the fourth cup on the cross, so when He said, “It is finished,” our salvation was not yet finished. He had not yet died, not yet risen, but the Passover was finished. One note: I’m no expert, and I don’t want to go too far, but the four cups at Passover may not have even existed in our Lord’s day. The Mishnah, a couple of centuries later, instructed that there would be four cups. Different writings and scholars vary in the order.
The first cup is the cup of blessing or sanctification. When the Jewish people celebrated Passover from Exodus 12 onward, it referenced God saving them from slavery in Egypt, pointing to the true Lamb of God who would save us from slavery to sin. The cup of blessing in Exodus represents God setting His people apart, freeing them from burdens. The cup of judgment is generally second, showing God’s mighty acts against the Egyptians who enslaved the Hebrews. The third is the cup of redemption, where God says, “I will redeem you with my outstretched arm.” The fourth is generally thought of as the cup of praise: “I will take you for my people, and I will be your God.” The three times Jesus prays in the garden can relate to the cup of judgment, His love for us, and His role as our Redeemer, dying in our stead.
Paul Thies: Beautiful. I have also done a little research on the Toda sacrifice of the Jews, the Thanksgiving sacrifice for one spared from grave danger. Some commentators note that when Jesus says, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” He references Psalm 22, a Toda Psalm. Here He is dying on the cross, saving all of us from grave danger, from hell, and from sin. It’s beautiful. There is so much unpacking that could be done. Mother, my wife mentioned the spiritual treasures Jesus leaves behind in the garden: His blood, sweat, and tears. Can you share some thoughts on that aspect of our Lord’s experience?
Mother Miriam: All of this was prophesied 2000 years before Christ, roughly 1500 years from the law. Our Lord said in Leviticus that the life of the blood is in the flesh, and He gives it on the altar to make atonement for our souls. The blood makes atonement. In the Passover, the Hebrews had a lamb, and its blood was put on the doorposts and crossbars. When the angel of death passed over Egypt, the firstborn of the Hebrews were spared. Without the shedding of blood, there is no forgiveness of sin. Only the blood of Christ, spotless and sinless, can suffice as a propitiation for God’s wrath. Sweat is also significant. St Luke, a physician, writes about hematidrosis, a medical condition in which extreme anguish causes blood to mix with sweat. Jesus said, “My soul is overwhelmed with sorrow to the point of death,” showing extreme anguish.
The suffering in Gethsemane is almost unimaginable. I sometimes think His suffering there could have been greater than on the cross, not in terms of physical pain, but the unbearable anticipation of taking all the sins of the world upon Himself, being separated from His Father, the full weight of sin in a sinless being. The tears are also significant. The writer of Hebrews says Jesus offered up prayers and supplications with loud cries and tears, and He was heard because of His Godly fear. He would not be spared, and He believed God would raise Him from the dead, dying in obedience for our sins. Blood, sweat, and tears were left in the garden, but the greatest treasure Jesus left us is His example of utter surrender to God, full trust, and complete obedience. This frees and strengthens us, not from fear humanly, but from spiritual fear, because we resolve to do His will above our own.
Paul Thies: You know, when I consider the Agony in the Garden, I have reflected that maybe a source of sorrow was that Jesus knew what He was to do for the world. It was not just a matter of His own suffering, like, “This is going to be painful.” He knew the momentous import of what He was undertaking to save people, to save all of us, and still so many people would say no. He knew He was the perfect sacrifice, the innocent victim who did not deserve this. It was perfectly divine and beautiful that He was doing it for our sake, and yet so many of us would still refuse Him. That must have been a great source of anguish for Him, that He could not save the stiff-necked people who refused to be saved.
Mother Miriam: Your Excellency, if I may. This is very bold of me, but dear Bishop Schneider, if I say anything that is off or not fully Catholic, would you please correct me? I know you are polite and do not interrupt, but please correct me.
Bishop Schneider: Well, we were redeemed by the blood of Christ, as Holy Scripture says. His death on the cross is holy, but the spiritual suffering in Gethsemane is significant because the essence, the soul of the suffering of the sacrifice on the cross, is the inner acts of Jesus Christ, which He had in His soul on the cross. His love for His Father, total loving surrender to His Father on the cross, and His love for us, for each human soul, and His offering of this act of love, was an immense act of divine and human love.
The bodily sufferings are the exterior manifestation of the inner sacrifice, the soul, the act of oblation, self-oblation. In some way, He anticipated this inner act of love, of suffering, in the spiritual suffering in Gethsemane as He anticipated the sacrifice of the cross. In the Last Supper, it was already a sacramental and bloody sacrifice. The Last Supper was a true sacrifice. We can see the connection: the anticipation of the sacrifice of the cross in the Last Supper, then the anticipation of the inner spiritual sacrifice, which would be united with His physical sacrifice on the cross, was anticipated in Gethsemane.
Paul Thies: Speaking of that love He has, I really believe His suffering was not about what He Himself was going through personally. It was much more about the loss of souls and the loss of that connection, having to do this for others. I want to bring up, Your Excellency, maybe the worst part of the agony was the kiss of betrayal by Judas. Can you comment on how painful that must have been for our Lord, how it continues to play out in the history of the Church, and what shepherds should do to avoid falling into the same error?
Bishop Schneider: The suffering in Gethsemane, when the Lord said, “My soul is sorrowful unto death,” is an expression of the greatest possible spiritual suffering of a human soul. God cannot suffer, but in His human soul, He suffered for us. In Gethsemane, as Mother mentioned, He saw that despite His sacrifice on the cross, His loving sacrifice, there would be souls who would reject His love for all eternity. He saw the souls who would be lost in spite of His offered sacrifice. He also foresaw all the blasphemies and sacrileges against His Eucharistic love, which is, in my opinion, one of the greatest sins of humankind against the sacrament of love, the Holy Eucharist. For this reason, when He appeared to St. Margaret Mary, He revealed His heart and asked her to spend one Holy Hour every Thursday evening, from 11 to midnight, in His agony before the Blessed Sacrament.
Mother Miriam: Behold this heart which has loved so much and is so little loved in return.
Paul Thies: Now, Mother, can you share your thoughts on the docility of Our Lord when He is confronted by the men who came to arrest Him?
Mother Miriam: I would say that docility was evident in the garden. When He said, “Not my will, but Thine be done,” He was receptive. To be docile is to be receptive. He was receptive to His Father’s will. He would do what His Father wanted. He chose His Father’s will above all else and was willing to drink the cup of suffering, of death, given Him by His Father. They came to arrest Him, but it was not the first time.
A couple of times in the Gospel of John and elsewhere, they came to arrest Him, and He escaped because His hour had not come. But this time His hour had come, the hour He would die and shed His blood for humanity, the hour for which He came into the world. “I came not to do my will, but the will of Him who sent me.” In short, He came to die. He was born to die. Babies are born to live. This baby was born to die and give His life as a ransom for all.
Paul Thies: Your Excellency, you mentioned earlier the episode where Peter cuts off the ear of the high priest’s servant, and Jesus tells him to put away his sword and then heals the servant. Can you speak to the beauty of Christ’s love for us, even when we betray and persecute Him?
Bishop Schneider: Yes, this episode shows that the Lord loved so much, even His enemies, those who came to arrest Him. This was already a manifestation of His concrete love for His enemies. On the cross, one of the seven holy words, He said, “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.” He not only forgave them but, in a way, excused them before the Father. He gave them a merciful love, even a kind of justification for their ignorance. This is an example of His immense merciful love. When we sin, He continues to love us. This may console people who have fallen into sin and are tempted to despair, lose courage, or doubt divine forgiveness. We must remember that the Lord still looks at us with loving eyes, even when we are sinners, waiting for us to return and repent, encouraging trust in His mercy.
Paul Thies: Absolutely. His love knows no bounds, and no sin is greater than Christ’s love. We must always remember that the salvation He offers is greater than any sin, greater than all sins collectively. Jesus always loves us. Even when we stumble, we must get up and go to Him immediately. Now, Mother, my last question: are there any Old Testament stories particularly relevant to the Agony in the Garden that can shed further light on this episode of Our Lord’s Passion?
Mother Miriam: Joseph comes to mind. He is often spoken of as a type of Christ. He was betrayed by his brothers; they sold him into slavery or left him for dead. But God rescued him. The very brother they tried to destroy became a great leader, saved them from starvation, famine, and even, I think, from sin. We came against Christ and killed Him, and yet God had the last word, blessed be His name. God raised Him from the dead and made Him our captain, leader, Savior, and Redeemer.
I would also point to Isaiah 53. I grew up in Brooklyn, mostly a Jewish population. On Jewish holy days, schools were closed, but scriptures were read daily over loudspeakers. One morning, a boy heard them read and ran home, insisting they had spoken about Jesus. The mother and principal checked, and the reading was from Isaiah 53: “Who has believed what we have heard? To whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed? He grew up before Him like a young plant, like a root out of dry ground. He had no form or comeliness that we should desire Him. He was despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief… Surely He bore our griefs and carried our sorrows… He was wounded for our transgressions, bruised for our iniquities, upon Him was the chastisement that brought us peace.” The mother said, “See, He’s talking about Jesus.” And indeed, it is the Old Testament prophet Isaiah speaking of Him.
Paul Thies: What a fitting final word. Your Excellency, Mother, thank you so much for unpacking the Agony in the Garden with us. What a blessing to have you both. Would you be so kind as to impart a blessing upon our viewers as we close?
Bishop Schneider: Dominus vobiscum
Mother Miriam and Paul Thies: Et cum, spiritu tuo.
Bishop Schneider: Et benedictio dei omnipotentis, Patris et Filii et spiritus Santi descendant, super vos et maneat semper. Amen
Paul Thies: Thank you, Your Excellency, and thank you, Mother Miriam.
Mother Miriam: What happiness for me. Dear Bishop Snyder, God bless you for strengthening us, speaking all over the world, and keeping your body healthy to travel. Thank you for being a faithful shepherd.
Bishop Schneider: And for your beautiful work, Mother Miriam, for your community, and Paul, for your apostolate of faith. May God bless you and may your words bear many spiritual fruits.
Paul Thies: Thank you, Your Excellency, and thank you, Mother.