This isolation seems to be a purgatorial experience for all the time I wasted talking nonsense, wasting time, and not being focused on God in years gone by.
I felt so far away from my dearest both in Europe, in America, and in Japan, wishing to share the High Holy Days with someone I love.
But, no...these are desert days. I am resigned and now have peace in this place.
But, I also felt so far away from Christ's own experience in Gethsemane, my little chapel being thousands of miles away from the Mediterranean and also "modern", the house having been built in the 1980s.
I complained to Christ that although mentally I was in Gethsemane with Him, but with many distractions, I could not share His place. I would have loved to be in Jerusalem.
Then, I thought of the Passover Moon outside, to the southeast, so large and bright. I got up and looked out the small chapel window. The clouds passed over the white orb, playing hide and seek with its brilliance.
Suddenly, looking at the full moon, I realized that Christ had seen this same moon, this same full Passover Moon. Like a lover desperate to find a tie to one's Beloved, I was consoled realizing we shared the same moon, despite the distance and years.
1,982 years ago, my Dear Lord, the Beloved One, looked at this same moon I saw outside my chapel window in the dark night of Holy Thursday.
Perhaps He thought of me, perhaps, in that Garden, as Christ, the God-Man, could see all the sins I have committed and all of us have, down through the ages as part of His Passion. How sad that I caused Him pain that night.
Today, as I rise for Good Friday Tenebrae, I shall think of Christ in a small prison cell, maybe smaller than this small chapel. No moon, no birds, no sunlight, only the horrible stench and cramped quarters of a dirty cell.
But, for one hour, we shared the moon of the great feast, sharing even in suffering, loss, yet, peace in the nothingness, in the darkness of isolation.
Matthew 26
40 And he cometh to his disciples, and findeth them asleep, and he saith to Peter: What? Could you not watch one hour with me?
