Daily Mass Gospel Reflection - Betraying The Sacred Meal

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 evil),
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.

Judas the betrayer expresses the mysterium iniquitatis with particular symbolic power,
for he had spent years in intimacy with Jesus,
taking in the Lord’s moves and thoughts at close quarters,
sharing the table of fellowship with him—
and yet he saw fit to turn Jesus over to his enemies
and to interrupt the coinherence of the Last Supper.

Those of us who regularly gather around the table of intimacy with Christ
and yet engage consistently in the works of darkness
are meant to see ourselves in the betrayer.

+++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."+++

So true... but what else is going on there with the Judas story?
Are we not shown in this Gospel
that even those closest to Christ, who have Jesus even in their hearts,
are also capable of betraying Christ in our sin?
That's the catch here, that we see ourselves correctly in sin we:
As the author sums up:

"Those of us who regularly gather around the table of intimacy with Christ
and yet engage consistently in the works of darkness
are meant to see ourselves in the betrayer."

To deny who He really is. Peter’s sin was far graver

Well…
That’s an error that modern Christianity has fallen into, whereby many of us falsely relativize sin- our sins- and sins of others.
This allows us to live by an ideal that I’m not so bad because my sins are “not that bad” compared to another’s worse “graver” sins.
ALL sin is an offense to God regardless, and yet all sin is then forgiveable by God. (Except sin against the Holy Spirit)

That’s part of the lesson of Jesus’ parable of the Pharisee and the Publican in the Temple.
The Pharisee had the false sense his sins were not as bad as the other.
Or when Jesus said the one without (ANY) sin- (read: No matter what kind of sin) throw the first stone.
Jesus didn’t rank some sin above or below other sin.
ALL sin is then an offense, and a turning away from God-
and so then must be validly confessed through a pure contrition.
Peter wept bitterly, Judas threw back the silver and hung himself.

The point being BOTH sins are bad- but MORE importantly – more necessary- is that we go beyond just words on a page- going deeper
and to see ourselves as Peter- and as Judas-
in how we too sin against God in our own way
in what the Gospel teaches us here in the Passion-
The purpose being to help us lead a truly Christ centered life-
and not a life that measures our sins as less than – against the sins of others.

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