Verse Two:

Don't want to be alone again tonight
I need to feel your warm embrace
I'm cold and anxious and I'm too tired to fight
Where's your compassion and your grace?
You said: "ask, and you will receive"
You said: "along with me you'd grieve"
You said: "if I would just believe"—so...

Commentary:

How often in these times we want to bargain with God? It's a very human thing to want to do, isn't it? Why does God allow pain and difficulties to enter into our lives? I don't think God sends pain into our lives — that is always manufactured by ourselves or by others around us — God seems to use pain, tension and anxiety as a tool much as a coach puts an athlete through increasingly difficult tests of endurance. Just as the athlete increases their stamina and endurance at the physical, emotional and intellectual level, so does God use these tests to increase our spiritual stamina.

Chorus:

Take this cup away from me
Take this cup away...
I feel that I can't take it but it won't let me be
Can you tell me why—why have you
abandoned me?
Take this cup away...

Gospel Text:

He came back and found them sleeping, and he said to Peter, ‘Simon, are you asleep? Had you not the strength to keep awake one hour? You should be awake, and praying not to be put to the test. The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak.’ Again he went away and prayed, saying the same words. [Mark 14:37-39]

Commentary:

Mantegna provides another view of the Agony in the Garden. Again the four principal elements in this story are there: Christ – the person suffering the pain; God the Father – the one with the answers; the sense of loneliness – characterised by the mates who are asleep; and in the distance the cause of the pain. Pain comes about through accidents, through errors that we make or sometimes we are on the receiving end of errors made by others. God does not send the pain but Christ models for us how He provides the answers to it...

Verse Three:

I'm placing all my trust in you

Commentary:

In this section of the multi-media I deliberately chose female images. There are a number of reasons for this. Firstly pain is a universal for all of us. The earlier images of the production had been mainly of male figures. Here we reflect on pain and anxiety as it is experienced by women...

Verse Three:

I have to believe
that you won't let me down

Commentary:

The two female images at the forefront of the picture also represent the feminine aspect of God. As the Church teaches God is pure Spirit. This whole Mystery we attempt to condense into the three letters G-O-D is in reality neither male nor female but has a relationship to us like a parent to their child. Is our relationship like that of a young child, or an adult child, to their parents though?

Verse Three:

Give me the courage to see this through –
please...

Commentary:

Pain and anxiety take so many forms...
It can be brought about by the death of a loved one as with these women in Kosovo

Commentary:

While the causes of our pain might differ individual to individual when we are in pain the intensity of the pain often clouds our judgment. We think the pain we are going through is the worst pain than anyone could be put through.