Solidarity!

 

SOLIDARITY

In the Garden of Gethsemane, Jesus told his disciple Peter, the devoted "rock" upon which he declared he would build his church, that Peter would disown him in the coming crisis on the morrow.

"Not I," answered Peter, "never."

"Yes," said Jesus. "Before the cock crows you will deny me thrice."

Again Peter denied this.

Then, while his disciples slept nearby, Jesus suffered his own Dark Night of the Soul and doubted his ability to carry through what he knew he must soon do. But, he accepted the cup from which he must drink.

And then Roman soldiers, led by Judas, burst into the garden. They arrested Jesus and took him away. Fearful of a roundup of suspected Jesus-followers, his disciples quickly scattered to their various dark corners and boltholes.

Peter found himself alone, on a strange street, surrounded by hostile strangers. "There's one now!" cried one of the strangers, pointing at Peter. "Get him! He's a follower of Jesus!"

"No, not I," cried the frightened Paul. "I don't even know the man."

"Yes," cried the stranger, as the angry mob crowded around Peter, "you're a follower of Jesus, I saw you with him!"

"No, not me, you're mistaken, I don't even know the man!"

"Yes, it was you I saw with him, you're the one!

"No," cried Peter for the third time, "I tell you I don't even know the man!" And then, in fright, he ran away, and the mob let him go.

And then the cock crowed as a new day dawned.

Moral: Awake, alone, in the Garden of Gethsemane, even Jesus, who had become a mere man, come to suffer and die as a mere man, doubted himself, as a mere man might do, and prayed that he would not have to do what he had to do. But, he was, after all, also the Son of God, and he finally accepted the coming suffering and death that he knew he must face alone.

But the devoted Peter, only a mere man, was made of weaker stuff. And when he faced the crisis alone, he faltered and failed and denied he ever knew Jesus. Isolation makes cowards of us all, even if you're St. Peter.