“Remain (Stay) here…Watch and Pray.”

We have now entered a period very intense and most difficult in the life of our Lord Jesus Christ. It is the period described by Pope Benedict XVI as the time

“when Jesus experienced that final loneliness, the whole anguish of the human condition, the heavy weight of sin and evil on His soul. When He was kissed by the betrayer, when He was abandoned by all the disciples, when He wrestled with His destiny for my sake.”

It is at this very critical moment in the history of our salvation that our Blessed Lord Jesus Christ invites us to “Stay/Remain” with Him, to “Watch and Pray that we may not undergo the test.”

The two words in this invitation, “Watch” and “Pray”, are most significant in the life of the Christian. To “Watch” is to always remain vigilant. It is noteworthy that the lack of vigilance in our times is what is equivalent to the sin of indifference, or the complete lack of interest, or simply the lack of care, or taking everything for granted.

Such indifference darkens the soul and blinds it to the omnipresence of the extraordinary that hides behind the ordinary in our daily lives. It is this sin of indifference, this atheistic indifference, this intentional laziness that makes the soul of the Savior of the world “very sorrowful even unto death.” How bitter, on top of blows and insults, is the pain of love unrequited, unnoticed, and unwanted!

The only way to combat the evil of indifference is to pray. It is only through prayer that we can remain vigilant. We can unite our souls with that of Mary, the mother of our Savior as she accompanies her son on this bitter and painful road to calvary.

Together with Mary the Mother of Jesus, we can listen attentively to Christ, and lose ourselves, so to speak, into the depth of Christ’s suffering. With Mary, let us be absorbed entirely by contemplation, adoration, and prayer. And in the deep silence of His sorrowful passion let us hide ourselves to find mercy for our souls. In the silence of this holy week, this week of intense prayer and vigilance, let us consider very carefully every detail of these final moments of our dear Savior as He enters His Passion for our sake.

Amen