It is a Catholic society devoted through prayer and Eucharistic adoration to (1) the vivification of deep, delightful friendship in the Church, that it may nurture and sustain the earthly sojourn of its members, and prepare these members for the radical friendship of Heaven and the communion of saints; (2) the deepening of the prayer lives of Catholics, in recognition of the insight that the quality of our friendship with others is a direct reflection of the quality and depth of our prayer life, i.e., our friendship with God; (3) the unification of the Church, which, abandoned through schism and metastasizing Protestant and non-Denominational splittings, bears in its mourning body the desolating effects of the sleep and flight of the disciples; (4) the healing and consolation of loneliness wherever, as a result of the wounds of Church and culture, a Catholic faithful finds himself forced to walk the road of faith without earthly companion.

That through this devotion both joyful and sorrowful, we may populate with flowers and fragrance the garden where our Lord suffered in prayer, and felt so alone, on the eve of his most perfect sacrifice and the greatest act of friendship we will ever know. He said: No greater love hath a man than this, than to lay down his life for his friends. In this society, we lay down our lives through prayer and adoration, and, critically, through a radical sacrifice of time for the friends the Lord has given us — and, indeed, each person who he brings into our lives — and we do so willingly and with eager hopes for our mutual sanctification, that we might enter the communion of saints already sweetly and joyfully accustomed to its fragrant intimacy, its perfume of love.

Time is our greatest possession. It is what we are most possessive of, what we most jealously guard. When a friend or a stranger calls upon us for our time — time we had our own plans for — it is like Christ Himself looking upon the rich, young man, with love: “Leave everything you are doing,” he might have said, “And come be with me.”

Do we walk away, sad, because of all the things we already had planned, all the ways we had already carefully apportioned and appointed our own time — because, in other words, we have too many possessions?

Or do we turn to our friend, or to the stranger, and say, “Yes. I have time for you. My time is yours.” In this Society, we give our lifeblood, our time, away. Not little by little. Not rationally. With prudence, yes, but also with perseverance. Yes, we persevere in loving our friends, we pursue the sacrifice of our time. We give our time lavishly, abundantly, knowing that this time is made holy by our pouring it out abundantly for others. When time is not thus poured out, it remains a violence in our veins; when it is spilled out for others, it becomes a little eternity on earth. The small beginning of great things — conversation, companionship, conversion, holy friendship, mutual sanctification.

“Brief indeed is our time for loving, for giving, for making atonement. It would be very wrong, therefore, for us to waste it, or to cast this treasure irresponsibly overboard. We mustn't squander this period of the world's history which God has entrusted to each one of us.”
- Josemaría Escrivá, 'Friends of God'

Friendship is what arises naturally from love. Since to love is to will the good of another, it follows that love always, a priori, seeks and requests another, desires another, breeds and builds another. It is not good for man to be alone. If there is no one whose good I might will, would that you would reach into my very flesh and make another of my own material to love, to give to, to delight in, to build up. Yes, says God, that is good. That desire is good. The desire to share His abundance; not to heap it up for oneself; he waited for that good desire to grow in Adam, and then, in response, answered his perfect prayer, with the perfection of the helpmate, the spouse, the friend. Out of their love, they were to populate the earth — not just with other spousal couples — but with siblings, and then eventually, with friends — the perfection of friends. I no longer call you servants; I call you friends.

Oh, right, sorry! Friendship is the steadfast practice of love between two people oriented towards Heaven.

Since love is willing the good of the other, friendship, that practice of love, is tucked within our will. It is therefore never accidental, it is always intentional. As it is never accidental, and always intentional, it is not naturally or necessarily convenient or comfortable.

The more well-ordered each friend is — the more each is pointed properly, willfully, and joyfully towards Heaven — the easier and lovelier will be the experience of friendship. But ease in friendship is directly correlated to the spiritual health of the friends in question; and seeking the appearance of ease and health where that is not truly merited, in other words, insisting on easy, comfortable relations between so-called friends, at the expense of a friction which would indicate the true spiritual health of the friends in question — and allow for divine remedy and growth — is not friendship at all, but a diabolical invitation to mediocrity or worse.

Why such strong language? Because friendship is the space where saints are made, and a spirit of mediocrity destroys that space.

We are saintmakers for one another. We understand that to be the case within the spousal relationship, whether in its lay marital or mystical unitive forms (consecrated virgins, priests, lay mystics, etc.). But even the spousal relationship has, at its heart, friendship — if the spouses are not friends, in the deepest sense, than they have not achieved spousal heights; to be honest, they have not achieved basic spousal reality. At its heart, every relationship is a relationship with God, and he is calling us to be his friends. Perhaps that is why the Lord does not say, No greater love hath a man than this, than to lay down his life for his sibling or spouse or child or master or slave...he says, No greater love hath a man than this, than to lay down his life for his friend. His friend. We are called to be friends of God.

And the clearest sign you are God’s friend, that you love God, and that you have listened to and received His love, is that the love spills over and out of you, is that you love others — not begrudingly, but doggedly, delightedly...you would beg God to break into your very flesh and make someone with whom to share this praise, so much does this praise demand, in its abundance, sharing; you would have him break into your own flesh rather than keep secret his love. It is good to guard the secrets of a King, but gloriously to reveal the works of God. You would have him break into your very flesh, you would give over your own body, you would momentarily sleep, if you could rise to speak His name to another, if you could rise to magnify His love. Saying this, she turned around and saw Jesus standing, but she did not know that it was Jesus. Jesus said to her, “Woman, why are you weeping? Whom do you seek?” Supposing him to be the gardener, she said to him, “Sir, if you have carried him away, tell me where you have laid him, and I will take him away.” Jesus said to her, “Mary.” She turned and said to him in Hebrew, “Rabboni!”

Jesus slept, so that He could rise to speak our names to us. So great was His love for us, His friends; He was eager just to say our names (and for us to know ourselves and Him in that saying); He was eager just to see our countenance change, to see the way our expression changed, when we realized how loved we were. Isn’t that just like a friend? The angels had already delivered the message to Mary; but it wasn’t enough for God; He wanted to say her name, and watch her change; to watch her do away with the formal, distant language of strangers, and switch, epiphanically, into the informal, native language of friendship (in Hebrew she said Rabboni); He wanted her to see Him seeing her; He delighted in her and loved her and wanted her to know it, and wanted be there with her as she mounted the next step in the path of knowing it, wanted to be there with her each step of the way in her path of becoming. Because He loves Mary. Because Mary is His friend. And watching joy break on the face of a friend...there’s kind of nothing better. Rabboni! Teacher! Teach us to delight in one another; teach us to fall in love with one another, with the way we grow and shift and change in our progression towards utter sanctification; someone approaches and we think, It’s just the gardener...and the Lord says, This gardener you did not recognize? It is your friend; it is Christ Himself. Oh, Holy Angels, who observed with joy the teaching of this magnificent lesson!

Yes! Friendship is the space where saints are made. We are saintmakers for one another. That is why friendship is under attack — and because we do not know its centrality to our faith, we fail to protect it in this attack. We speak of groups of friends, but the corporal unit of friendship is two, because its foundation stone is the gaze — the seeing of the other and the being seen by the other and the seeing of the seeing of the two; but then the gaze is also deeper than that; it is primordial; it is primal and aspirational; it confesses unknown histories, unspeakable depths, ineluctable heavens.

In the gaze between friends is all of time and the collapse of time and what comes after time. Although it is rare for friends to hold the gaze, still somehow they catch a vague idea of what that gaze would reveal, very tenderly, about their friend; and even the vague idea is enough to hold two friends together; but oh, if they would only truly gaze upon each other...what wouldn’t be confirmed!

Still, just the vague idea of what the gaze would be — whatever passing glances have whispered of — often suffices for the foundation of a holy friendship.

Of which, we have said the corporal unit is two. The spiritual unit is three. The Holy Spirit enters in to complete the trinity for true friends — so that the absolute basic unit of friendship is always three: you, the friend, and God.

From this, it becomes clear why friendship is such a foundry for saints — in friendship, we gaze at one another through Christ, as if through a lens, more fervently, and joyfully, and willfully than we do anywhere else. We love our friends. We delight in them. We love them in their body and in their soul. We have little desire to possess them; we need no sexual gratification in order to justify or sustain our love. It is very simply a delight and a belief — a fervent delight, a dogged belief — in another; one that mirrors and sometimes even rivals our delight and belief in ourselves. In that sense, we constantly and mindlessly die to ourselves for our friends. Their very being calls forth in us the sort of nobility the Lord asks of us in general.

The more every person becomes to us, therefore, a friend or a potential friend...the more you are naturally in love with and in service to the people around you. Friendship as an impulse tends to transform the outlook into a saintly outlook; and the saintly outlook tends to transform people into saints. When one is looked on with love, through a friendly gaze, one tends to stand a little straighter, smile a bit more childishly — one starts to like oneself more, and be oneself more, because suddenly it seems like the truth of who you are meant to be is a delightful and beautiful thing. And so, under the friendly gaze, one bends towards sainthood, one becomes more himself. Where two or three are gathered, there am I.

What could be more dangerous to this state of affairs than mediocrity? Mediocrity is an agreement not to see or invoke the excellent. It uglifies all it touches, in the name of acceptability and reasonable excuses. When mediocrity enters and establishes itself within a relationship, it advocates against the friends; it mutates the gaze of love into a gaze of condescension; it convinces friends to ask and expect less of one another; it sets up hierarchies and closes down abundance; a friend becomes no different from a meeting being scheduled; a friend in need becomes a burden; your own need becomes shameful, a sign of unworthiness.

Mediocrity. Under its auspices, we demand nothing of each other that does not contribute to the easy flow of things. We pay very little attention to one another’s growth and if we notice something is amiss, we are wary of mentioning it. The purpose of friendship, says mediocrity, is not iron sharpening iron, is not that you make one another into saints...

Such a project is so unpleasant, and finally not very nice, says Mediocrity. ...Simply enjoy one another’s company sometimes, when it is convenient...and don’t get too attached, don’t track each other too intensely or deeply... after all, a person and a person’s company are two very different things...the more you get to know a person, the more you put in jeopardy...the ability to be invited into their company. The most important thing is that you are able to keep company...with a good number of people...whoever these people are...

Such untruth, such hostility to truth and beauty — it evicts the Holy Spirit (or causes the Spirit to flee). You are neither cold nor hot. Would that you were cold or hot! So, because you are lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I will spew you out of my mouth.

And so the unit of three becomes a unit of two. A godless friendship, a friendship not worth its name — a friendship that the Enemy loves, because it poses no threat to him... such relations of convenience, of mutual flattery, of condescension and egoism...will never produce or sustain the saints that defeat him.

It is lived out through prayer, community, and contemplation. Learn more here.

Prayer is the conversation friends are always having; a life of unceasing prayer is an ever-presence with God, and with his saints (and saints-in-making). Gethsemanians spend all of their time with their friends — their earthly companions, the saints, and God. Although our conversation spans all things and all movements of the soul and heart, we daily pray for: the unification of the Church, and the return of non-Catholic Christians to the Holy Catholic Church; the consolation of loneliness among the faithful; the increase of true and holy friendship; and the deepening of the prayer lives of the faithful.

Gethsemanians can pursue virtue by many means. One way is by carefully considering what is lacking in their moral composition, working to sow what is lacking through the mercy of God and with the assistance of their guardian angel, and also pruning those virtues which are already present in their moral composition so that those do not wilt from pride, presumption, or lassitude.

It is important for the Gethsemanian that the point of the pursuit of virtue not be to build up one’s idea of oneself, but rather to grow closer and closer to God, since virtue is proximity to God. We want to become one of God’s very best friends!

To that end, Gethsemanians also pray to grow in an authentic love of the virtues, recognizing them not as burdens to be dutifully borne, but as gifts from God, welcome instructions as to how we gain entry to his Heart, and dwell deeply there. If a virtue strikes us as burdensome or repugnant or contrary to ourselves, we simply pause and ask the Lord to reveal to us the truth, justice, and beauty of the virtue, in hopes that we might not simply attain to possessing the virtue, but may attain to loving the virtue.

To tune their ears to the voice of God, and to protect themselves from its diabolical counterfeit, Gethsemanians undertake training in Ignatian discernment. This helps them discern the Lord’s voice not only for themselves, but also assists them in counseling and consoling their earthly friends. Every Gethsemanian desires to be a worthy and fit confidante (and counselor) to whomever they may meet. This does not mean they give advice at all times — sometimes the wisest course is only to listen — but they do equip themselves with the means to at any time, at the behest of God, jump into the spiritual fray of another, and provide meet and meaningful consolation.

Through Ignatian discernment, we also come to understand why we must seek out and console the lonely among the faithful, and why it is so important to defeat and overcome loneliness and isolation in the Church. As we learn in the Thirteenth Rule, the Enemy uses isolation to his benefit when attacking the faithful, even and especially those faithful who are moving from good to better. He speaks his lies to the faithful and depends upon their keeping it a secret from good and holy friends who would easily expose the lie. When we grow comfortable and complacent with isolation and loneliness in our parishes and Catholic communities, the Enemy is pleased, because it greases the wheels of his machinations. How easily a lie of the Enemy is defeated and contradicted when a person is surrounded by good and holy friends! Such a person doesn’t long hesitate to share his or her heart, to be vulnerable — such a person has been trained by the love of friends not to fear judgment, but only to expect stout- hearted charity, whether expressed in praise or admonishment — and so very simply shares with one friend or another a troubling thought or temptation — one that may even be dressed up as a reasonable or respectable insight or inclination. At once, the friend can receives counsel that disperses and defeats the inimical lie!

Whereas, an isolated faithful may be left to his or her own devices, and those devices may not be infinitely strong or infinitely well-trained, and getting confused and worked around and lost, may soon find themselves straying, and ashamed, and then straying further yet.

Being invested in defeating the Enemy in the life of the other is the responsibility of both the spiritual director and the friend.

We, as Catholics, also know there are a dearth of spiritual directors. What’s the benefit of pretending otherwise?

It’s probably best to look the situation squarely in its face: our salvation is mutual, it depends one upon the other, and this is how it pleased God to structure it. The Lord’s prayer is not My father... it is Our Father...so how can we pray in the plural and live in the singular?

It is loneliness and isolation that creates the conditions for lies that, prevailing, derail the spiritual life, especially in fledgling saints — and those lies can include the pursuit of vocations that are not proper to the person’s own path — false vocations borne of desperation, aimlessness, and self- sabotage — borne of exhaustion, mediocrity, and a desire for respectability, above anything else.

Though it might seem to contradict the apostolate of friendship, Gethsemanians must train themselves in alone-ness. They must be capable of declining evil and frivolous company, counterfeits of friendship in all its variety. They must insist upon the genuine article.

Also, Gethsemanians must be willing to share the cross of the loneliness of the faithful; this sharing is not only lived out in relieving this burden through shared company; it is also lived out by understanding its depths and its neccessity. Let no Gethsemanian see in the loneliness of the faithful evidence of spiritual error or mistakes made — they must understand the nobility of choosing loneliness over falsehood, and must themselves practice this daily penance; choosing the friendship of God over friendship with the world.

Practically, this may express itself in declining participation in activities that we view as socially lubricative — listening to profane music, watching profane television shows or movies, participating in profane holiday “celebrations”, engaging in gossip, telling “white lies”, working and shopping on Sundays, using profanity, laughing at crude and pointless jokes, and so on. We allow ourselves to die to all the hallmarks of false and convenient friendships, and willingly suffer the worldly consequences of our refusal. This refusal is never pompous or showy, but is simple and discreet.

Because of its especial dearness and beauty, laughter and humor must be particularly protected from profanity by the Gethsemanian. Sometimes the greatest act of resistance is simply not laughing at a joke. On the other hand, laughing at an evil joke is capitulation to the evil the joke contains. Laughter is a way of saying yes — we give our Yes to God alone.

Gethsemanians are keenly aware that these quiet acts of refusing the world can consign the faithful to loneliness — indeed, if a Gethsemanian has not himself experienced very deeply this loneliness, he must ask himself if he has truly committed himself to the path of friendship. Foxes have dens, birds have nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head. We must know this Christ to be his friend, and a friend to his beloveds.

In Friends of God, Josemaria Escriva writes: “The Messiah's words are quite clear. He stresses, once and for all, 'by this you will be known, by the love you have for one another!' ...St. Paul adds, 'bear one another's burdens; then you will be fulfilling the law of Christ'. Think of the amount of time you have wasted, perhaps with the false excuse that you could easily afford it, and yet you have so many brothers, your friends about you, who are overworked! Help them unobtrusively, kindly, with a smile on your lips, in such a way that it will be practically impossible for them to notice what you are doing for them. Thus they will not even be able to express their gratitude, because the discreet refinement of your charity will have made your help pass undetected.”

This discreet refinement of charity is the ideal form of the Society’s “work”. Gethsemanians seek to love friend and neighbor in such a way that their left hand does not know what the right hand is doing... discreetly, simply, and pervasively... letting God work and speak and re- arrange through us. When we enter into a space, we long to make it more beautiful, more ordered, more graceful —

What does this mean practically? Clean the dirty dish, wipe the table, open the door, help with the groceries, hold the child, make the coffee, ask the follow-up question, notice when someone is withholding something meaningful and inquire into it... do what needs to be done without being asked and with joy in your heart; even further, cleverly conceive of ways to do more, to be allowed to help even more than the other would dare to ask, though they truly need it!

Harmonizing with Wordsworth, we, too, pray that God may make our life express the image of a better time...

“More wise desires, and simpler manners,” the poet continues, “Nurse my heart in genuine freedom: —all pure thoughts be with me; —so shall thy unfailing love guide, and support, and cheer me to the end!”

To make the world lovelier and full of love, and to do it simply, simply...not out of a desire to be thanked or recognized...but out of a desire simply to be one of the many ways God enters into a moment. This is genuine freedom — the Lord’s freedom to live and move in you.

Lord, let me be an unobstructed door for your use, granting easy passage into my life and the lives of others... Let me always be one of the doors God has established for His use in any space I reside!...a structural element of the Builder...!

But who notices or thanks a door? Still, cleansing breezes and kind company pass through it, and it also protects against malign and worrisome influences...

One way is by reading the writings of the saints, and engaging with their art, as a way of speaking with them, benefiting from them, and also simply delighting in their wisdom and friendship. Getshemanians also nurture a unique, joyful bond with saints through simple conversation — the hallmark of friendship.

Saints are specific. When, in the parable of the wedding party, the man arrives without his wedding garment, this is particularly offensive because, in that culture, everyone was provided with a specific garment — the invitation would have come with the garment the guest was to wear. The guest accepted the invitation to the feast, but declined the garment given him, specifically, to wear at the feast.

One way to understand this garment we are required to wear is the specificity of each person’s sainthood. Read more here.

In addition to daily rosaries as may be prescribed by a Gethsemanian’s rule of life, Gethsemanians follow Padre Pio’s counsel, using the rosary also as a weapon to defend and purify not only themselves, but their friends and their friendships.

The rosary is like the whip made of cords that the Lord used to drive the money-changers from the temple. When the temple of our souls becomes overrun by the profane, it will express its profanity outwardly in the way we pray and the way we conduct our friendships. When friendship and prayer cease to be self-giving, thanksgiving, delight...and morph rather into relationships of exchange, of tit for tat, of scarcity and hoarding, of carefully weighed offerings... then, we as Gethsemanians must weave a whip, we must be consumed with zeal for the spiritual health of our friends and of ourselves, we must pray the rosary, we must use it as a weapon that drives out all that is false and ungainly from the temple courts of our hearts, and the hearts of our friends.

When the betrayers came to Gethsemane, the disciples leapt to a violent, physical defense of the Lord. But the Lord wanted only the weapon, the whip, of prayer — it was what he had asked for that they did not give, sleeping instead; it was the only thing that could protect his friends from temptation; it was the source of the strength they were going to need but did not know they would need and so did not store up and so fled, terrified.

Where was Mother Mary that night? Was she praying? And making a whip of cords, was she driving them out?

Though a man might prevail against one who is alone, two will withstand him. A threefold cord is not quickly broken.

The society is consecrated to the Sacred Heart of Jesus through Our Lady of La Salette.

The patron saints of the Flowers of the Garden can be found on the Patrons page.

Green, gold, and black. Green is for everyday beauty and the lushness of sainthood; gold is for divine victory and resplendence; and black is for divine mystery, rest, and justice.