Sweat in Solitude, Bleed in Public

by greywolf70

Português: Cerimônia de canonização do frade brasileiro Frei Galvão celebrada pelo papa Bento XVI no Campo de Marte em São Paulo, Brasil. (fragment) (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Today at mass my Priest recounted one of the first things that Pope Benedict XVI did which was institute new Cardinals. I am not going to quote what the Pope said, because I probably wont have quoted it properly, but basically he told them that the color of their office was red, and that it was to remind them that they cannot be afraid to let the people see them bleed for Christ. However, before all that he brought up the saying “Don’t let them see you sweat.” and basically said that instead of saying that we the people of Christ must also not be afraid to bleed for Christ. The two sayings basically got me thinking and I took what his short daily mass homily said and I took it further for me and I feel that others might feel the same way.

I think it is impossible for a person to not sweat out of fear, mostly because it is an instinctual reaction to stress for our body, but I got to thinking of the Garden of Gethsemane. Jesus asked for this cup to pass, and he took all the sins of the world upon himself and he sweat, albeit he sweat blood it was literally from the stress of it all, but he did it alone. I am sure the apostles he took with him would not have fallen asleep had they been present and witnessed that but I feel there is a deep mean there to why he was alone. It was a lesson to all of us that simply by following him we would bleed from persecution and that he was showing us to prepare alone, in silence with God the Father. He wants us to sweat it out in private so that when our time to sacrifice ourselves arises, we would be ready to bleed in front of the people.

I am sure most Christians are familiar with the Passion narrative and almost every person is familiar with the film, The Passion of Christ. It is a brutal memoir to the reality of what Roman torture was and, more importantly, an amazing look into the stoicism that was Jesus during his passion. He understood what must be done and he left everything with his Father that night he took on sin and I think that is the lesson he wanted for us and what the Pope was telling the Cardinals. We need to sweat our stress and fears out alone so that we can go out and bleed for Christ and his people. I know I said that earlier but I feel the reiteration is so necessary because of its simplicity in words, it sounds so easy; however, we Catholics and Christians in general know that sacrifice is not simple but it is apart of our higher calling.

I want to challenge you all to flip to Philippians 4:13 when your sweating it up, may this scripture become a back bone for alone time.

God bless,

J.