Angelus News | February 23, 2024 | Vol. 9 No. 4

Painting of Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane
inside St. Johann der Evangelist
Church in Vienna, by Carl Joseph Geiger,
1822–1905, Austrian. | SHUTTERSTOCK
Sometimes we make prayer more
complicated than it should be.
That great master of prayer, St.
Francis de Sales, described prayer as a
conversation or better, a dialogue.
In his “Introduction to the Devout
Life” he writes: “It is good to use
dialogue and talk to Our Lord and
also to the Angels, to people who are
represented in biblical mysteries, to
the saints and even to ourselves, to our
hearts, to sinners and even to insensible
creatures, as we see in David and
other saints in their meditations and
prayers.”
A dialogue most appropriate for
Lent would be to talk to the angel
who comforted Jesus in his agony in
Gethsemane.
This scene, which we remember in
the first Sorrowful Mystery, is wholly
scriptural, although we only find it in
St. Luke’s Gospel. Jesus, we are told,
knelt down and prayed, “Father if
thou art willing, remove this cup from
me; nevertheless not my will but thine
be done. And there appeared to him
an angel from heaven, strengthening
him. And being in an agony he prayed
more earnestly and his sweat became
like great drops of blood falling down
upon the ground” (Luke 22:43–44).
The classical technique for meditating
on such a Scripture is to put
oneself in the scene as a spectator, to
witness Jesus’ heartfelt prayer, to feel
the pain of body and soul illustrated
with his sweat made blood, and to see
the angel with him.
De Sales’ words about colloquy
encourage us to address not only the
Lord in our dialogue, but also the
“angel from heaven” sent to comfort
the Savior. By our prayer, we become
not just spectators of the scene, but
interlocutors.
We find two prayers to this angel
in the old Raccolta (“Collection”),
February 23, 2024 • ANGELUS • 11