Not everyone in our community will endure to Calvary with our Lord. Not everyone will persevere during the “great and terrible persecution.” We are now in Gethsemane with our Lord being prepared for the Church’s Calvary. We must persevere in watchfulness and prayer, for if we fall asleep, we, too, like Peter, James, and John, will run away when faced with the persecutors.

Watch what? Watch Jesus! Watch Him suffer; watch Him cry; watch Him pray and unite ourselves to suffer with Him, cry with Him, pray with Him, gazing at Abba through Him. Only then will we have the strength to rise and ascend Calvary with Him and not run away. If Peter, James, and John had remained with Him, their eyes fixed on the “suffering servant,” praying to the Father with the Son, they would have been ready to face the persecutors as one with Jesus.