Archconfraternity of Holy Agony
From the Catholic Encyclopedia
An association for giving special honour to the mental sufferings of Christ during His Agony in the Garden of Gethsemani. Its object is to obtain through the merits of these sufferings:
- peace for the Church, preservation of the Faith, and the cessation of scourges;
- the grace of a happy death for hardened sinners who are about to die, and in general spiritual aid for those in their death agony.
The head of the archconfraternity is the superior general of the Congregation of the Mission, who puts the details of the work in the hands of a sub-director of the same congregation. The medal of the arch-confraternity bears on one side a representation of the Agony of Christ in the Garden of Gethsemani, on the reverse, Our lady of the Seven Dolours. The chief festival is that of the Prayer of Christ, which occurs on Tuesday of Septuagesima week. The society has spread all over the world and has been erected, chiefly but not exclusively, in the churches and chapels of the Lazarists and the Daughters of Charity. While the chapel of the motherhouse of the Lazarists in Paris is the seat of the archconfraternity, and the monthly meetings and the novena preparatory for the feast of the Prayer of Christ are held there, in another part of Paris a chapel of the Holy Agony has been built in gratitude for the favours received by the association, and as a testimonial of reparation and love at the end of the nineteenth century. The "Bulletin of the Holy Agony" is published every other month in Paris; a quarterly edition in English appears at Emmitsburg, Maryland. All the details of the association can be found in the Manual of the Archconfraternity published at Paris, 95 Rue de Sèvres. The director for England and Scotland resides at St. Vincent's, Mill Hill, London; for Ireland at St. Peter's Dublin; and for the United States at St. Vincent's House, Emmitsburg, Maryland.
LARIGALDIE, Antoine Nicolle (Paris, 1909)
B. RANDOLPH