Daily Mass Gospel Reflection - Betraying God With sin

Word on Fire Ministry ^ | 03.26.24 | Bishop Robert Barron

[MurphsLaw]

John 13:21-33,
John 13:36-38

Friends, today’s Gospel is from John’s account of the Last Supper,
where Jesus acknowledges Judas as his betrayer
and tells him to get on with it.

God’s desires have been, from the beginning, opposed.
Consistently, human beings have preferred the isolation of sin
to the festivity of the sacred meal.
Theologians have called this anomalous tendency the mysterium iniquitatis
(the mystery of iniquity),
for there is no rational ground for it,
no reason for it to exist.

But there it stubbornly is, always shadowing the good,
parasitic upon that which it tries to destroy.
Therefore, we should not be too surprised that,
as the sacred meal comes to its richest possible expression,
evil accompanies it.

[MurphsLaw]

+++Reclining at table with his disciples,
Jesus was deeply troubled and testified,
"Amen, amen, I say to you, one of you will betray me."
The disciples looked at one another,
at a loss as to whom he meant.
One of his disciples, the one whom Jesus loved,
was reclining at Jesus' side.
So Simon Peter nodded to him to find out whom he meant.
He leaned back against Jesus' chest and said to him,
"Master, who is it?"
Jesus answered,
"It is the one to whom I hand the morsel after I have dipped it."
So he dipped the morsel and took it and handed it to Judas,
son of Simon the Iscariot.
After Judas took the morsel, Satan entered him.
So Jesus said to him, "What you are going to do, do
quickly."
Now none of those reclining at table realized why he said this to him.
Some thought that since Judas kept the money bag,
Jesus had told him,
"Buy what we need for the feast,"
or to give something to the poor.
So Judas took the morsel and left at once.
And it was night.

When he had left, Jesus said,
"Now is the Son of Man glorified, and God is glorified in him.
If God is glorified in him,
God will also glorify him in himself,
and he will glorify him at once.
My children, I will be with you only a little while longer.
You will look for me, and as I told the Jews,
'Where I go you cannot come,' so now I say it to you."

Simon Peter said to him, "Master, where are you going?"
Jesus answered him,
"Where I am going, you cannot follow me now,
though you will follow later."
Peter said to him,
"Master, why can I not follow you now?
I will lay down my life for you."
Jesus answered, "Will you lay down your life for me?
Amen, amen, I say to you, the cock will not crow
before you deny me three times."+++