Tuesday in Holy Week, April 4, 2023

John 13, 21-33; 36-38

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.”

The Gospel Reading for today’s Mass is taken from a section of St. John’s Gospel.  The Last Supper has commenced.  St. John presents a contrast of two men, Judas and Peter.  The first did not speak and betrayed Jesus; the second spoke up and denied Jesus.  We learn from this that anyone, even the best disposed person, can sin against Jesus.  In order to avoid doing this we must, first, avoid evil and, second, not presume on our own strength.

John also shows us how many chances Jesus gives us to repent, to turn away from committing mortal sin, and that no one is fated to commit it.  In today’s Gospel Reading, Judas receives three very plain notices from the Lord that he knows he has planned to betray him: the first when Jesus says, “Amen, amen, I say to you, one of you will betray me.”; the second, “He is the one to whom I hand the morsel after I have dipped it.”; the third, “What you are going to do, do quickly.”  Judas knew, then, that Jesus knew, and that of Jesus wanted to, he could order the other Apostles seize and kill him.  But he lets neither shame nor fear prevent him from carrying out his plan.  No blood ever ran colder than Judas’s.  The Lord further gives him chances to repent even right to the moment when Judas leads his gang of thugs into the garden to point the Lord out to them.  Even after betraying him and he had thrown away the money the Sanhedrin had paid him, he could have gone back to the Lord.  Peter, who denied Jesus three times, was at least as remorseful of his sin as Judas was of his own, but Peter did not despair and reconciled with his Master after he rose from the dead.

“Now is the Son of Man glorified, and God is glorified in him.”  Jesus waits for Judas to depart before he announces his glorification because his sufferings begin now, with the betrayal.  The Lord sees this as glory rather than disaster because his obedience to the Father’s will reveals his love for him and for us.  The Lord also sees that the beginning of his Passion will end in his Resurrection.  His Death is not an end in itself but a means to an end, that of his rising again.  He already looks forward to that day.  “You will look for me, and as I told the Jews, ‘Where I go you cannot come,’ so now I say it to you.”  You will look for me in the tomb, Jesus says to them, but you will not find me there.  Rather, I have come down from heaven to find you, O lost sheep, and I will return from death to shepherd you always.  “Where I am going, you cannot follow me now, though you will follow later.”  St. John quotes Jesus twice in his Gospel speaking of Peter’s death.  Perhaps John wrote his Gospel shortly after he received news that Peter had been crucified at Rome.  “Master, why can I not follow you now? I will lay down my life for you.”  St. Thomas Aquinas comments that Peter’s protestation that he would die for the Lord takes different forms and occurs st different times before, during, or after the Last Supper.  He concludes that Peter made several of these protestations, either out of bravado or in order to work up his courage.

The Lord gives us numerous opportunities throughout our lives to renounce sin and draw ever nearer to him.  Let us deny the devil and not Jesus.