Wednesday of Holy Week
This Week’s Intentions: That in this Holy Week all people will turn again to Christ’s law of love, living with compassion and justice to serve the dignity of all people, and embracing God’s gifts of forgiveness, faith, and truth.
Today’s Gospel | Matthew 26:14-25
One of the Twelve, who was called Judas Iscariot, went to the chief priests and said, “What are you willing to give me if I hand him over to you?” They paid him thirty pieces of silver, and from that time on he looked for an opportunity to hand him over.
On the first day of the Feast of Unleavened Bread, the disciples approached Jesus and said, “Where do you want us to prepare for you to eat the Passover?” He said, “Go into the city to a certain man and tell him, ‘The teacher says, “My appointed time draws near; in your house I shall celebrate the Passover with my disciples.’” The disciples then did as Jesus had ordered, and prepared the Passover.
When it was evening, he reclined at table with the Twelve. And while they were eating, he said, “Amen, I say to you, one of you will betray me.” Deeply distressed at this, they began to say to him one after another, “Surely it is not I, Lord?” He said in reply, “He who has dipped his hand into the dish with me is the one who will betray me. The Son of Man indeed goes, as it is written of him, but woe to that man by whom the Son of Man is betrayed. It would be better for that man if he had never been born.” Then Judas, his betrayer, said in reply, “Surely it is not I, Rabbi?” He answered, “You have said so.”
Lenten Reflection
In the Gospel of Matthew’s narrative of the betrayal by Judas, the stage is set for the passion of Jesus. As familiar to Christians as this story is, there is always a certain bewilderment over why Judas turns traitor. Where did he go wrong? One possible explanation might help us to answer that question, as well as to ask a similar one of ourselves.
Reading Matthew’s words, we see in Judas someone who has decided to reject Jesus out of selfishness, but perhaps not so much for money as for satisfaction. The messiah he sees is not the messiah he wants. Jesus asks for faith, compassion, forgiveness, mercy. To Judas, in his zeal for a kingdom that will humiliate and crush his nation’s enemies, it is asking too much. This way leaves no room for anger or retribution. The demands of love overwhelm the rigidity of his mind and the smallness of his heart. Judas cannot accept the challenge that is Jesus’ gift of redemption, of its power to heal and transform him, and so he scorns it. He will punish Jesus for seeing through him.
And so, a question we might ask ourselves is whether or not we have any reluctance to accept Jesus and his good news on his terms. How well do we handle the temptation to “revise” the meaning of Jesus’ life to fit into our own views about our life? Hans Urs von Balthasar once insisted, “It is to the Cross that the Christian is challenged to follow his Master: no path of redemption can make a detour around it.” This is the heart of discipleship, to die to those things within us that take us away from following Christ, especially those things that prevent his hands from touching and changing our hearts.
Holy Week calls us to reflect on our willingness to be made new through Jesus’ saving love. To make the leap of faith from our own path to God’s requires not only trusting in God’s goodness, but also striving for that to which his goodness calls us. We will have to rise to the occasion, admitting our past excuses and returning to being our best and truest selves. Sometimes the greatest struggle is not to find a way out of sinfulness, but to leave it behind when we are freely given the opportunity. As the philosopher Plato wrote, “We can easily forgive a child who is afraid of the dark; the real tragedy of life is when men are afraid of the light.”
Prayer
Eternal Father, all of us experience the temptation to sin against you, to sin against our gifts, to sin against each other. In this Holy Week, strengthen us in those moments when values and virtue are at stake. Help us to never stray from you or to be weakened by selfish desires. Fill us with the will to remain faithful in times of struggle and to keep our hearts fixed on your saving Kingdom. We ask this of you who lives and reigns with your Son and the Holy Spirit, one God forever and ever. Amen.
St. John Baptist de La Salle, pray for us.
Live Jesus in our hearts forever.