Judas

By Fr. Conor Donnelly

(Proofread)

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

My Lord and my God, I firmly believe that you are here, that you see me, that you hear me. I adore you with profound reverence. I ask your pardon for my sins and grace to make this time of prayer fruitful. My Immaculate Mother, Saint Joseph, my father and lord, my guardian angel, intercede for me.

“When Jesus said these things, he was troubled in spirit. And he testified and said, ‘Amen, Amen, I say to you, one of you shall betray me’” (John 13:21).

There's a special solemnity about these words. The tone of the Gospel narrative changes when Our Lord begins to talk about the betrayal.

He uses very solemn words. “He was troubled in spirit.” It's not often we hear those words, “troubled in spirit.” If your spouse comes down to the breakfast table and tells you that they're troubled in spirit, you know there's something pretty seriously wrong.

Our Lord begins to talk about the betrayal. “The disciples, therefore, looked upon one another, doubting of whom he spoke” (John 13:22).

Often in the Gospel, there is a great contrast—and also the story of the Passion, it's a story of contrasts. On the one hand, Our Lord is talking about some very serious things that are about to take place.

You get the impression that the apostles just haven't a clue what he's talking about. “They looked one upon another, doubting of whom he spoke.” They just have no idea what Our Lord is referring to.

Then we go back to a situation of intimacy. “Now there was leaning on Jesus' bosom one of his disciples, whom Jesus loved” (John 13:23). St. John always talks about himself in the third person: “the disciple whom Jesus loved.”

Closest to Our Lord was St. John, who was going to be there at the foot of the Cross—young, faithful, pure, loyal, model for all young people. He's like the direct contrast of what Judas is. He's close to Our Lord. He's leaning on His bosom. There is intimacy. There is trust. There is communication, whereas Judas is out in the cold.

“Simon Peter, therefore, beckoned to him and said to him, ‘Who is it of whom he speaks?’” (John 13:24). Interestingly, Simon Peter is a little distance away. He's not the closest to Our Lord; John is.

John has the heart and mind of Christ. Peter has to go through John to speak to Jesus; “asked him, ‘Who is it of whom he speaks?’”

Peter wants to know because he also doesn't have any clue. In the external actions and behavior of Judas, there is nothing to suspect about what he's up to. He plays a great game. He's one thing on the outside, and he's completely different on the inside.

Certain characters that we find in the Passion of Christ are very interesting. As we move through Holy Week, one of those characters is Judas.

We don't like to talk about Judas. He's not a very comfortable character. But there's a lot to be learned from Judas. He's totally lacking in unity of life. He's not transparent. He's the perfect Pharisee.

He masquerades as an apostle of Our Lord. He masquerades as though he's taking in all the formation and he's going to be a loyal apostle. He's the trusted member of the group, trusted with the purse, looking after the managerial and financial aspects. But yet something very unusual is amiss.

“He therefore, leaning on the breast of Jesus, said to him, ‘Lord, who is it?’” (John 13:25). John has the inside track.

As we move through Holy Week, watch again these contrasts: intimacy with Jesus, from Mary of Bethany, from John, and sometimes the opposite.

Ultimately, Simon Peter is going to almost commit the same sin as Judas. “Woman, I do not know him” (Luke 22:57). Peter is a little bit almost in league with Judas. He's on the other team.

Mary of Bethany and John would have made up a good team together, the people to imitate, people to be close to.

“Jesus answered, ‘He it is, whom I shall reach bread dipped.’ And when he had dipped the bread, he gave it to Judas Iscariot, the son of Simon” (John 13:26).

Now what has been hidden comes out into the open. There are an awful lot of hidden things during Holy Week, a lot of undercurrents, murmurings, betrayals, bitterness, envy, jealousy, hypocrisy. The chief priests and the elders of the people are plotting. It's all very sinister. Little by little, Our Lord exposes all these things.

“And after the morsel, Satan entered into him” (John 13:7a). It's interesting that in the story of the Passion, we find that Satan is now mentioned. Satan, who has been functioning under the cover of darkness, is now brought out into the open.

Sometimes in life, in society, in people, we may see the personification of evil before our eyes. Fulton Sheen says there are two clear signs of the devil in the world: one is nudity and the other is violence. Think a little bit about the last few movies or TV shows that might have been on offer. You get a bit of an idea.

It's very good that we have a certain presence of the devil—presence of Satan and fear of Satan. He's very active. He's doing things. It's good that we see certain actions as the fruit of Satan. We're able to call a spade a spade.

“And Jesus said to him, ‘Whatever you do, do quickly’” (John 13:27b).

There's a certain urgency in this business of Redemption. Our Lord wants to get it over and done with quickly. He asks Judas. That's about the only thing that Judas is going to obey. He's going to go out quickly.

“Now no man at the table knew to what purpose he said this unto him” (John 13:28). So there's a conversation going on between Jesus and Judas. Jesus is able to read his heart and to read his mind, but nobody else has any clue as to the content of this conversation, what it really means.

There's this interplay all the time between what is taking place and also the deeper aspects of the whole story. “For some thought, because Judas had the purse, Jesus had said to him, ‘Buy those things which we need for the festival day,’ or that he should give something to the poor” (John 13:29).

So the apostles are thinking about their stomachs. ‘Judas has the money. He's going to buy what we need for the Paschal Feast.’ It's a conversation about dinner. Again, this amazing contrast: “Or he should give something to the poor.”

We were told in an earlier chapter that Judas hated the poor. He had no time for the poor. He was a thief and used to take what was in the purse (John 12:6). But none of the apostles suspected him.

“He, therefore, having received the morsel, went out immediately (John 13:30). And here we see the obedience of Judas. The only time when he really listens to Jesus is when he's asked to go and “do what he has to do quickly.”

Then the passage ends: “And it was night.” Darkness descends upon the whole of humanity. The betrayer is now at work. The terrible deed is about to take place. All the planning is in place. The whole machinery of the betrayal is about to be put in motion.

There is darkness. So we have Christ who is the light (John 8:12). and we have the darkness of evil and of sin. This is the hour. “Woman, my hour has not yet come” (John 2:4).

But then Christ at the Last Supper says, “‘Now the hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified.’ When he, therefore, was gone out, Jesus said, ‘Now is the Son of Man glorified, and God is glorified in him” (John 13:31).

Then we find the whole tone of the Gospel narrative changes. Christ begins to talk about His glory. He couldn't talk about these things in the presence of Judas.

He's going to proceed to say some very beautiful things that are full of love and tenderness and affection. The coldness in relation to the conversation with Judas has passed.

Now Christ opens His heart to His beloved friends and disciples. “If God be glorified in him, God will also glorify him in himself. And immediately he will glorify him” (John 13:32).

In just two sentences, the word “glorify” is mentioned five times—very different from the previous narrative.

Then He says, "Little children, yet a little while I am with you” (John 13:33). Little children. These are big burly apostles, big fishermen. But Christ talked to them with the tenderness of a loving heavenly Father speaking to little children.

We’re reminded of His phrase when He said, “Unless you become like little children, you cannot enter the kingdom of heaven” (Matt. 18:3).

“You shall seek me, and as I said to the Jews, where I go, you cannot come. I say to you now, a new commandment I give to you...” (John 13:33-34a).

It's at this moment that Our Lord is going to give the great commandment to the Last Supper: the basis of the whole of Christianity, something He wants people to remember for always. “Charity is the bond of perfection” (Col. 3:14).

“A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another as I have loved you” (John 13:34). As yet, Our Lord has not died on the cross, but He's going to. And they're going to realize later the power of those words, “as I have loved you.”

How did Christ love? Through sacrifice, through the shedding of His blood, through fulfilling the will of His heavenly father. “...That you also love one another.”

“By this shall all men know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another” (John 13:35).

God, who is love (1 John 4:8), speaks, through Jesus, the commandment of love. He doesn't speak about love when Judas is there, because Judas has not learned how to love.

It's something that Judas could not grasp, because of his lack of assimilation of all the formation that Christ had given him over the previous three years. But yet nothing has penetrated.

It's a sort of wake-up call for each one of us to take our formation very seriously; to listen to the Holy Spirit well when He speaks to us through our spiritual reading, through our prayer, through our retreat, our recollection, and our other means of formation as we may attend. Every single bit of formation that God gives us is important.

Judas makes no effort, so he doesn't grasp anything. He misses the central message of Christian teaching.

We have to grasp that message because it's “by this that all men are to know that we are his disciples.”

“If we don't have love,” St. Paul says, “we are nothing” (cf. 1 Cor 13:2-3). Absolutely nothing.

Judas ends up with nothing. He wasn't open to things. He wasn't listening. He wasn't docile. There seemed to be no alarm bells that should have been ringing.

We should have some wake-up calls if we miss things. If we're negligent, if we don't care enough about all the means that God has given to us, alarm bells should start ringing all over the place.

But the heart of Judas is cold. There's no love there. The only person he loves is himself. He's the complete opposite of what Christ is talking about. He's full of egoism and selfishness.

The thirty pieces of silver occupy his mind. He has a price for everything but knows the value of nothing. There's a phrase in Scripture that says, “Where your heart is, there your treasure is also” (Matt. 6:21).

Where was the heart of Judas? It was in those thirty pieces of silver. That was worth anything. He's willing to do anything. Full of avarice.

We could ask Our Lord for the grace to let those alarm bells start ringing when we get our priorities wrong.

Lord, help our treasure to be in our soul, in our spiritual life, in our family, in the things of God, in the apostolate, not in the things of this world.

Help us not to have a calculating spirit like Judas has. We are all potential Judases. We are all capable of the most terrible things that any human person can do or commit in the world.

That's why we need never be scandalized by any of the evil we may hear about. We can just bow our heads and say, ‘There but for the grace of God go I. I know with all my miseries I'm capable of all those terrible things. That has to lead me to a deeper humility, to go back to the foot of the Cross with a true contrition, a greater contrition all the time, to begin again.

“Then one of the twelve who was called Judas Iscariot went to the chief priests and said to them, ‘What will you give me and I will deliver him unto you?’ They appointed him thirty pieces of silver. And from thenceforward he sought an opportunity to betray him” (Matt. 26:14-16). Judas has his price.

We could ask Our Lord that we might have our principles, moral principles, and ethical principles, in our family, in our work, and in our social relations, and that we might never be willing to sacrifice those principles for anything, even if the whole house was falling down upon us.

Lord, help me to be faithful to my principles.

Judas had no principles. Because he had a price on everything, because he was so mercenary, he committed the greatest mistake of his life. He was very negligent. He was given the vocation of an apostle, but he messed everything up.

He didn't take his vocation seriously. He didn't put his whole heart and soul and mind into the calling that God had given him. From day one, there was a big problem.

We can ask Our Lord for the grace to take very good care of our Christian vocation—every small detail, because everything is important.

“As he was yet speaking, behold a multitude, and he that was called Judas, one of the twelve, went there before them, and drew near to Jesus to kiss him” (Luke 22:47).

The very gesture that is a sign of affection becomes a gesture of betrayal. The lack of unity of life in Judas finds its full expression.

“Jesus said to him, ‘Judas, do you betray the Son of Man with a kiss?’” (Luke 22:48). Every time that we commit sin, we betray the Son of Man. That's why we have to have a hatred for sin, a hatred even for venial sin.

Lord, open our eyes to all the beauty, the truth, and the love that you place before us. Help us to see. Help us to realize that we are so lucky in our vocation.

You've given us so many things, so much formation, so much education, so many graces, so many talents. Help us to be consequential in all of this.

Judas was completely the opposite. He didn't savor his vocation. He didn't value it. He was negligent. He didn't pay attention to his formation. He messed around with the things of God.

We can ask Our Lord that we might make very good use of our time to realize that God has given us time to fulfill the great plans that He has for us, to fulfill our mission—this opportunity, that opportunity. Help us not to waste our time and to see the authentic value of all the good things that you give us.

“There is something…divine in the most ordinary human realities” (cf. Josemaría Escrivá, Homily, Passionately Loving the World).

And this question that Our Lord says to Judas—it's as though it's a last opportunity for conversion: “Do you betray the Son of Man with a kiss?”

Would you not like to change your actions at this moment? Think again of what you're doing, what a mess you've made of your life, of all the wrong things that you've put in motion.

“Then Judas, who betrayed him, seeing that he was condemned, repenting himself, brought back the thirty pieces of silver to the chief priests and ancients” (Matt. 27:3).

So he realizes, a little bit anyway, of what he has done. He repents. It's not worth 30 pieces of silver. Maybe I should have got more.

“He says, ‘I have sinned by betraying innocent blood.’” Finally, the penny drops—great sorrow for what he has done, or at least a little bit of sorrow.

Sometimes, it's only after our actions that we realize what we have done, the gravity of what we have done and the effects. “But they said, ‘What is that to us? Look into it’” (Matt. 27:4).

He became the instrument of the chief priests to achieve what they wanted. And that was all they cared about. They were happy.

“And casting down the pieces of silver in the temple, he departed, and went and hanged himself with the halter” (Matt. 27:5).

Judas gave into despair—sort of the logical consequence of the whole train of thought and action that he had been following. He hangs himself. He could have repented. He could have wept bitterly.

Peter betrayed Our Lord, but then “he went out. and he wept bitterly” (Luke 22:62). He realized he had done something terrible and he was sorry for it.

Judas was not fully sorry for it—the importance of contrition, authentic contrition, which is sorrow for love—sorrow for having hurt someone that we love.

“But the chief priests, having taken the pieces of silver, said, ‘It is not lawful to put them into the korbana, since it is the price of blood.’ And after they had consulted together, they bought with them the potter's field to be a burying place for strangers. And for this cause, the field was called Akeldama, that is, the ‘field of blood,’ even to this day. Then was fulfilled that which was spoken by Jeremiah the prophet, saying, ‘And they took the thirty pieces of silver, the price of him that was priced, and they priced of the children of Israel, and they gave them onto for the potter's field, as the Lord appointed to me’” (Matt. 27:6-10).

The great sin of Judas that led to his demise was the lack of unity of life—a lack of unity between the ascetic and the apostolic part of our life. He didn't grasp what Jesus was talking about.

The Second Vatican Council said that one of the greatest errors of our time is the separation between faith and life (cf. Vatican II, Gaudium et spes, Point 43)—the person who perhaps goes to Mass on Sunday, but doesn't put their faith into practice in any concrete way.

We have to work at our unity of life. It's a virtue. Keeping and improving our unity of life gives us a great opportunity to live the spirit of obedience and docility, so that we're living our vocation in every moment.

We're carrying out our Christian vocation. We are apostles in every circumstance.

In the formation that we may attend, our personal disposition has to be to listen so that we can later improve. Listen with docility, with desires of self-giving. All the other apostles were listening carefully to the things that Our Lord was saying to them.

Part of our unity of life are the norms of ‘always’—acts of thanksgiving, acts of atonement, acts of faith—the necessary expressions of a soul in love.

Little by little we become contemplative souls, constantly seeking God in everything, wanting to make Him happy in everything we do, having the right intention.

Judas had the wrong intention. He was there listening, part of the apostles, but he was scheming. His thoughts were on another plane. But he was keeping up a first-class appearance. He puts up a great performance. He could have won an Oscar. But yet he's so hollow.

It's a reminder to us that we can be one thing on the outside, and we may be something very different on the inside.

Our Lord warned us that “out of the heart of man” come all sorts of evil things: envy, jealousy, lust, pride, anger... (cf. Mark 7:21-23).

On a regular basis, we have to try and get all these things out. That's why regular Confession is a great gift and grace, something wonderful to work towards and to practice. It brings a new joy into our lives and into our family and helps us to carry with us the fragrance of Christ.

We're reminded by Judas to live a great unity of life when spending money or handling money, especially if it's not our own—but even if it is, to account for it, to know where it's going, to take care of office expenses, to be sober in celebrations, to think with the mentality of a father of a large and poor family.

Do I really need to buy this thing? Do I really need to have this thing? Can we get by without it? Can I do more good?

The Christian conscience thinks twice—thinks with a social consciousness; very aware of the social dimension of property: it's a gift that God has given to us to use for the maximum benefit of other people.

That virtue of poverty helps us to live our Christian spirit in all circumstances. We can live our unity of life in all circumstances, no matter where we are, no matter what we're doing.

Judas could have used his contacts with the chief priests to try and work their conversion. He could have seen them as souls that God had sent him to do something with them, even if it was difficult. But he didn't see that opportunity.

To want to practice virtue is not enough. We have to learn to do so. Good intentions are not enough.

Judas doesn't even seem to have had good intentions. He may have wanted to give some glory to God, but not all.

With our unity of life, we need to give all the glory to God.

In the Furrow, we're told, “You really do need to make an effort and put your shoulder to the wheel. For all that, you should put your professional interests in their place: they are only means to an end; they can never be regarded—in any way—as if they were the basic thing. These attacks of professionalitis will stop you from being united to God” (J. Escrivá, Furrow, Point 502).

There are many consequences we can draw from contemplating the mistakes of Judas.

“That ordinary job,” we're told in Furrow, “which is the same one your fellow workers do—has to be the constant prayer for you. It has the same lovable words, but a different tune every day. It is very much our mission to transform the prose of this life into poetry, into heroic verse” (J. Escrivá, Furrow, Point 500).

We’re told in The Way that in addition to the offering of your work, “Make use of those holy ‘human devices’ that I suggested to help you keep presence of God: aspirations, acts of love and reparation, spiritual Communions, glances at the images of Our Lady (J. Escrivá, The Way, Point 272).

As we move through Holy Week, Our Lady must have had a sense of what was happening. She must have seen the betrayal beginning to take place. The sword “has begun to pierce her heart” (cf. Luke 2:35).

We can accompany Our Lady these days, making acts of love and atonement to her that will draw us a little bit closer to her, so that we can accompany her in the hours and days that are coming.

I thank you, my God, for the good resolutions, affections, and inspirations that you have communicated to me during this meditation. I ask your help to put them into practice. My Immaculate Mother, Saint Joseph, my father and lord, my guardian angel, intercede for me.

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

EW