Posted on 05/04/2023 12:45:33 PM PDT by MurphsLaw
FOURTH WEEK OF EASTER
John 13:16-20
Friends, in today’s Gospel,
Jesus announces his betrayal just after
transforming bread and wine into his Body and Blood.
It is of great moment that,
immediately after this extraordinary event,
Jesus speaks of treachery:
“The one who ate my food has raised his heel against me.”
In the biblical reading, 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 call this tendency the mysterium iniquitatis (the mystery of evil),
for there is no rational ground for it.
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
and sharing table fellowship with him—and yet,
he saw fit to turn Jesus over to his enemies.
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.
"Amen, amen, I say to you,
no slave is greater than his master
nor any messenger greater than
the one who sent him.
If you understand this,
blessed are you if you do it.
I am not speaking of all of you.
I know those whom I have chosen.
But so that the Scripture
might be fulfilled,
The one who ate my food has
raised his heel against me.
From now on I am telling you
before it happens,
so that when it happens you may
believe that I AM.
Amen, amen, I say to you,
whoever receives the one I send
receives me,
and whoever receives me
receives the one who sent me." +++
Is Jesus Christ the ‘privileged way’ to salvation—or the only way?
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