Let us keep watch with the Lord in his agony

Tissot, Jesus in Agony in the Garden

His companions asleep in the shade;

His Father - in heaven, yet rejecting him,

A frightening void where love succumbs;

No bird in the quivering tree......

Is it only Jesus who keeps vigil,

imprisoned by unending night?

Is only he abandoned? Only his ear waiting in

vain for the voice of the morning?

In her house, the window open

onto the hill, once so green,

which she beheld, in happier times,

the Mother also suffers in agony

for the absent son, forgotten by his Father,

but she must shed her tears alone.

Miroir de peine ('Mirror of Pain') by the Belgian poet Henri Gheon (the pen name of Henri Vangeon) is a set of five poems which describe Christ's sufferings from the point of view of his mother Mary. Hendrick Andriessen composed his setting in 1923.

"Could you not keep watch for one hour" by James Tissot

Could YOU not keep watch with me one hour?

Garden of Gethsemene - October 2011