In the third mystery we contemplate the triumph of the Father in the garden of Getsemani when He gives all His power to the Son.

“Then Jesus came with them to a place called Getsemani, and said to His disciples: “Sit here while I go over there and pray”. And He took with Him Peter and the two sons of Zebedee, and began to be grieved and distressed. Then He said to them: “My soul is sorrowful unto death, remain here and keep watch with Me”. And He went a little beyond them, and fell on His face and prayed, saying: “My Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from Me, yet not My will but Yours be done!” And He came to the disciples and found them sleeping, and said to Peter: “So, you could not keep watch with Me for one hour? Keep watch and pray that you may not enter into temptation; the spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak”. He went away again a second time and prayed, saying: “My Father, if this cup cannot pass away unless I drink it, Your will be done” (Mt 26:36-42).
An angel then appeared to Him from heaven to strengthen Him. In His anguish He prayed with all the greater intensity, and His sweat became like drops of blood falling to the ground (Lk 22:43-46).
Then He came to the disciples and said to them: “Are you still sleeping and resting? Behold, the hour is at hand and the Son of Man is being betrayed into the hands of sinners. Get up, let us be going, behold, the one who betrays Me is at hand” (Mt 26:45-46).
Now Judas, having received the Roman cohort and officers from the chief priests and the Pharisees, came there with lanterns and torches and weapons. Jesus went forth and said to them: “Whom do you seek?” They answered Him: “Jesus the Nazarene”. He said to them: “I AM HE!” When He said to them “I AM HE”, they drew back and fell to the ground” (Jn 18:4-6).

Let us examine every part of this description of Jesus’ agony in Getsemani because it is of fundamental importance in order to understand the Heart of the Father and to guide us on the way to holiness; Getsemani is the way we must cross on our journey toward Heaven, toward the Father.

What is Getsemani? It is the great agony, the great battle with “the adversary” which Jesus must undergo in His humanity, as the “Son of man”, to redeem all men. Before Him is a reality which is greater than Himself: it is Jesus man, with all His most perfect and therefore infinitely sensitive humanity which must battle with the great adversary called “death”, “evil”, “sin”. This is for Him “the hour of darkness”, the hour of the second battle: the first battle took place in the desert, when Jesus won the first stage of this battle and “the devil left Him until an opportune time” (Lk 4:13). Getsemani is the “hour” of the second and decisive battle in which the destiny of humanity will be determined.

“He began to be grieved and distressed”

In Getsemani Jesus loses the power to do miracles, that supernatural energy which made Him rule all surrounding realities, which made demons flee, which calmed the stormy seas, which raised the dead. With this power He went toward evil and released it: “He healed them all”, the Gospel says.
Now all the evil in the world falls upon His humanity and He asks His intimate friends for help because His “soul is sorrowful unto death” and He begins to be “grieved and distressed”. But His friends are sleeping, “the adversary” put them out of action at the beginning of the hostilities, chloroforming their will because they didn’t pray and their “flesh is weak”.
Jesus is alone with the Father, and He turns to Him: “My Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from Me, yet not My will but Yours be done!” (Mt 26:39)

In this existential battle between one’s “ego” and God the final victory belongs to God, because Jesus subordinates His will to His Father’s will. It is the great victory, the redemption of Adam’s “no”. However, He obtains this victory in a blood bath.

“His sweat became like drops of blood falling to the ground”

The sweating of blood is a phenomenon which occurs in very rare cases, following an extraordinary psychic trauma. Jesus’ sweat is so abundant that it soaks into the ground. When He realizes He is fainting, He clings to the Father, seeking in Him the comfort which His sleeping brothers are not able to give Him. The Father immediately responds to His Son’s cry by sending Him an Angel.

The Angel of the Chalice

It is the Angel of consolation, the Angel of the chalice. What is in that chalice? The will of the Father, and Jesus drinks it; but while He drinks the Father’s will – in a total “yes” – the Father communicates Himself to Jesus and gives Him all His power…
The Father communicates Himself to His dying Son just as the Son, a few hours before, had communicated Himself – with the chalice – to His apostles.
In that moment, Jesus drinks all the power of Life of the Father which allows Him to get up again, reproach His friends with gentleness and go toward he who has sold Him with words that are a cry of Love: “So, you could not keep watch with Me for one hour? … Are you still sleeping and resting?” (Mk 14:41). “Judas, are you betraying the Son of Man with a kiss?” (Lk 22:48).

“I AM HE!”: The Father is in Jesus.

Jesus becomes the usual Master, in fact He is more powerful than before, because now the Almighty Father is completely in Him. In order to become convinced let us now see what happens in the encounter with the crowd and the guards who went to get Him:

“Whom do you seek?” They answered Him: “Jesus the Nazarene”. He said to them: “I AM HE!” (Jn 18:6)

In the Italian version of the text we read: “Sono io!” (It is I), but this is because in current speech the expression sounds better phonetically. In the Latin version, instead, it is “Ego sum” and in Greek ““έγω έιμί”. The literal translation is therefore “I am!”.

“I AM” is the Father’s name, who calls Himself in this way in the Old Testament: Moses said to God: ‘Indeed, when I come to the children of Israel and say to them, “The God of your fathers has sent me to you,’ and they say to me, ‘What is His name?’ what shall I say to them?” And God said to Moses: “I am who I am!” Then He said: “you shall say to the children of Israel: I AM has sent me to you” (Ex 3:13-14).

Therefore, in saying “I am he!”, Jesus describes Himself with the Father’s name. or rather, the Father declares His presence in the Son and bears witness to Himself – not only with His own name – also with His POWER which is the characteristic of God the Father:  “When He said to them “I AM HE”, they drew back and fell to the ground” (Jn 18:6).

The Father, through Jesus, bears the weight of the Passion: we saw Jesus collapse to the ground, seized with “sorrow and anguish” (Mt 26:37) and “fear” (Lk 14:33). He was under so much stress that He sweat blood. He probably had a heart attack, according to the theory of Italian doctors who have thoroughly examined the phenomenon.
How could a man in those conditions immediately regain control of the situation and have such strength as to make “a large crowd with swords and clubs” fall to the ground (Mt 26:47) while a few minutes before He collapsed to the ground?
How could He have resisted the scourging, the journey to Calvary and the crucifixion?
How could He have lived the whole Passion, always being in control of men and events, like in the case of Veronica, the pious women and the good thief?
It is the Father who, through the Son, bears the weight of the Passion and masters it step by step, until Jesus cries out victoriously: “It is finished!” (Jn 19:30).

As soon as the Son utters these words, the Father slowly withdraws from His tortured body which only He kept alive until that moment.
Jesus perceives this drawing away of the Father, and for a moment feels the dismay which He experienced in Getsemani: “About the ninth hour Jesus cried out with a loud voice, saying: “Eli, Eli, lamà sabactani”, that is, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” … and Jesus cried out again with a loud voice and yielded up His spirit” (Mt 27:46-50).

Jesus fought His battle and won it, but not alone: in Him the Father fought and won, with the Power of the Spirit which will explode at the Resurrection.

This is the case for each one of us.
Let us be careful not to waste the moment of our Getsemani and let us always say: “Father, not My will but Yours be done!”
This isn’t easy, because saying “yes” to God means saying “no” to our own “ego”, denying ourselves and dying to ourselves. But this is sanctity: with every “yes”, our “ego” decreases, there is more room inside in our souls, the power of God’s Light pierces us more and more and we become less material and more spiritual. When we become a definitive “yes”, our ego will die and then each one of us will be able to say together with St. Paul: “It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me”. We will finally be free.
Our life will take on a full and joyous meaning, because we will become the eternal triumph of the Father who will transform our death into an eternal resurrection.