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Daily reflections for Lenten Easter, written by Oblate Father Ron Rolheiser, OMI.

In describing Jesus in the garden of Gethsemane, Luke says this, in his anguish he prayed even more earnestly, and his sweat fell to the ground like great drops of blood.

Some years ago There was a TV series entitled ’30 Something’. One episode went this way. A group of married men gathered for a social evening at a hotel.

One of the men found himself attracted to the hotel manager, with whom he had to deal all evening in terms of arranging food, music and drink. She was attracted to him too, and the romantic chemistry intensified. Finally, the moment came to part. The man stalled, thanking her again for her help.

She, not wanting to lose the moment, asked him, would you like to get together again sometime? The man hesitated, guiltily apologized for not being more forthright earlier, and did what few have the moral courage to do, not without sweating a little blood. He said, I’m married. I need to go home to my wife.

My dad, perhaps the most moral man I’ve ever known, used to say, unless you can sweat blood, you’ll never keep a commitment in marriage, in priesthood, or anywhere. That’s what it takes. And he was right. One of the great lessons of Gethsemane is precisely that to keep any commitment, we have to sweat blood.

Because, like Jesus in the garden, there comes a time when we have to enter into a great loneliness, the loneliness of fidelity and of responding to a higher will and a higher eros.

The lover in Jesus had to let go of some things, and the same is true for each of us.