the story behind the song: "Prayer in Gethsemane"

I’d like to offer some background behind the lyrics for “Prayer in Gethsemane.” I guess it’s been nearly 25 years ago that I read a couple of books by Ann Johnson, Miryam of Nazareth and Miryam of Judah in which she uses her vast knowledge of Jewish life and customs as well as evidence from the New Testament to offer a glimpse into the prayer life of Mary, the mother of Jesus. I remember being very taken by the author’s fictional details that were, I believe, intended to bring us inside the mind and heart of one of the closest people to our Lord during the most important days of her life: her son’s birth and his death. It captured my imagination to think about all there is that we don’t know about the prayer life of Jesus. Did Mary who “treasured these things and stored them in her heart” keep the gifts of the Magi and at what point might she have brought them forth to share with her son? And then, how did Jesus come to know who he was and how did he pray to his Father in all of those days, months, and years until he would fully comprehend what his mission would cost him. And was it a gradual process that led him to surrender to the will of his Father?

Then, I remember praying with psalm 22, which starts with those familiar words that our Savior referenced while hanging on the cross, “My God, my God, why have you abandoned me.” Back in the early 1980’s while still in college, I attended a retreat with a Jesuit scripture columnist, Fr. Francis Cleary, SJ. I recall him suggesting a different, nuanced meaning for what Jesus might have been trying to tell his mother and those standing near the cross: “remember psalm 22.” What if his calling out those ancient words that he would have memorized as a boy was less about questioning God’s presence and more about trying to remind us of the end of that psalm. Because at verse 30 come the words, “to (the Lord) alone shall bow down all who sleep in the earth; Before him shall bend all who go down into the dust. And to him my soul shall live.” NAB

As his life passes before his eyes and he is living out in the most literal way possible, the images of this psalm, his final prayer is a belief in God’s power that will conquer death and bring him to life once more.

So, I invite you to consider that on the last night of his life, there in that lonely garden of Gethsemane, while his friends have all dropped off to sleep, their bellies full of the Passover lamb, Jesus may have knelt there praying Psalm 22. He long ago realized that he WAS the Passover lamb for that year and all years to come. As his “blood cried out” to his Father and he struggled to conquer the weakness of his human flesh, the invincibly strong spirit of Jesus placed his trust in his Father’s “greatest love” that would raise him to life.