Our Accursed Sleep

You said, “Come to Me,” and “You will find rest for your souls.”¹

The Psalmist says, “You give to Your beloved rest.”²

But, O Jesus, deliver us from that odious resting, that damnable sleep in which we slept when You said, “Watch and pray.”³

Deliver us from the disregard we showed, to which You replied, “could you not watch with Me for one hour?”⁴

As the world was silently sleeping and taking their rest, You were carrying the weight of the world's sins on Your holy and venerable shoulders. Sleep was unthinkable to You at that moment. How could we think of sleeping, we who call ourselves Your friends?

O Light of the world, You knelt alone in darkness; darkness that was a warm blanket for Your tired friends, but to You was cold and heavy, cruelly driving away sleep. It was the great antithesis, the high ransom, the Agony. It was the hour of darkness.⁵

We could not even give up our sleep, but You, You! sacrificed immeasurably more. Despising sleep, You thought of sinners.

And You loved them.

You loved them in Your anguish, sweating great drops of Your saving Blood, one drop of which can heal the entire world of all its sins.⁶

Jesus, deliver us from that accursed slumber, that laziness, concerning which You said to Your church in Sardis, “Wake up!.. For I have not found your works complete in the sight of my God!”⁷

Deliver us from that which You rebuked through Your Apostle: “Wake up from your drunken stupor”⁸, and from that sleep that you forbade for Your faithful servants, who must be ready to open the door to the Master of the house when He comes.⁹

O Jesus, God from God, Light from Light, disperse our darkness.

Lord, have mercy.

Jesus, I trust in You.

Amen.

Awake, O sleeper, and arise from the dead, and Christ will shine on you. —Ephesians 5:14

And when he had spoken to me, I fell into a deep sleep with my face to the ground. But he touched me and made me stand up. —Daniel 8:18

“Christ in the Gethsemane Garden”, 1901, Arkhip Kuindzhi.

I wrote this prayer yesterday as I meditated on our Lord’s sleepless prayer in Gethsemene. I don’t do many posts that are prayers like this, but if you enjoyed this one, check out The Hammer of God or Remissionem Peccatorum. I should be finishing a few longer essays in the coming weeks.

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1. Matthew 11:29

2. Psalm 127:2

3. Matthew 26:41

4. Matthew 26:40

5. Luke 22:53

6. “Cujus una stilla salvum facere totum mundum quit ab omni scelere.” —St. Thomas Aquinas’ Adoro Te Devote

7. Revelation 3:2

8. 1 Corinthians 15:34

9. Mark 13:55