Gethsemane

(oil press; according to others, olive garden) (Matt. 26:36; Mark 14:32; Luke 22:39; John 18:1) — the name of the most sacred place for all Christians, witness to the prayer, unto bloody sweat and soul’s anguish, of our Lord before His death on the cross. According to some interpreters, a village once stood here, but according to the testimony of St. John the Evangelist, it was simply a garden (John 18:1–3). It lay at the foot of the Mount of Olives, beyond the brook Kidron, which flowed between the mountain and the city, a stone’s throw from the former (Luke 22:41).

In the garden there still stand to this day eight large and very ancient olive trees. A low, half-ruined wall surrounds the garden. According to the accounts of travelers, the Franciscan monks who own this sacred place preserve the pits from the abundant olives that grow here and make rosaries from them. How many sacred, deeply moving Gospel memories are awakened beneath the shade of these age-old Gethsemane trees! Here the Lord often withdrew with His disciples; here, in the final hours, He was betrayed by Judas Iscariot to the servants of the high priest (Matt. 26:36).

Here the Son of God bore that terrible burden of boundless soul-anguish which wrung from His lips the harrowing cry: “My soul is exceeding sorrowful unto death!” (Mark 14:34); here also, beneath the shade of these age-old olive trees, in His prayer before death, the sweat of the divine Sufferer poured out like great drops of blood, falling to the ground (Luke 22:44). To this day