"He finds so few really generous souls". Agony in the Garden by Benvenuto di Giovanni c.1491

Life is only a day quickly passed and gone, but the merit of it, the glory given to God, will remain forever. Give Him all you can generously and lovingly, do not let one little sacrifice escape you, they are dear to Him because He finds so few really generous souls who think only of Him and never of themselves.

COMMENT: Perhaps the scenes from the Garden of Gethsemane can help us to reflect on generosity with God, versus thinking of ourselves…

Jesus, in great distress, brings his remaining 11 apostles to the garden with Him. He brings his three closest apostles further into the garden, and asks them to watch with Him.

While Jesus goes off to pray in great distress, what of the three close friends? They are asleep! When Jesus returns, he wakes them, but they soon fall back asleep. And the cycle repeats itself once more as they fall asleep a third time, leaving Jesus to weep and pray unaccompanied (by humans at least) in His great distress.

How often we “fall asleep” ourselves, how often we can lack generosity with the God who has given us everything. Perhaps it is negligence in our prayer or the avoidance of work or duties that we would rather not perform. Maybe it is failing to perform some act of kindness for another that we would be a little inconvenient for us. Each day provides lots of opportunities for generosity but we rarely take advantage of them as we should.

When the apostles slept, Jesus didn’t condemn them, but He did give specific advice to them, and it remains relevant for us today:

Could you not, then, watch one hour with me? Watch and pray, that you may not enter into temptation. The spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak.

We will not be able to be generous with God unless we pray for the grace to do so.

In conclusion, let us remember that not everyone was asleep that night. Judas remained wide awake, and was busy going about his business…