Betrayal . . . a word and action none of us want to experience, but cannot avoid. I immediately think of when my youngest daughter Taylor was 14 years old . . . she experienced the ultimate teenage betrayal. Her crush on the blond-haired, blue-eyed quarterback freshman year was every girl's dream guy. The first week of school he saw her in between classes and asked if she needed help finding her class. Boom! That's all it took to become her first high school crush. Excited about him approaching her, she rushed to tell her best friend of 5 years. She described him to a tee, every detail she could remember. A few weeks later, her best friend was dating him. Taylor was devastated (and my heart was broken for her). The fact that someone who knows us better than anyone else can so easily betray us in what seems like overnight is unfathomable . . . painful. If we struggle with it, imagine how our Savior must have felt as journeyed toward His crucifixion.
In today's Gospel (John 13:21-33, 36-38), Jesus identifies his 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.”
In Anne a lay apostle's book Staying in Place, she sees betrayal in a different light:
"Clearly, love is different from what people initially think when they hear the word. Love is vaster. Love demands a response and an honest acknowledgement of both frailty and vulnerability. We love with hearts that have been broken or with hearts that will be broken. Christ’s heart was broken at falseness, inconsistency and betrayal. We want to be as faithful as Christ was in our love for God in each other. But we must accept that we will fall short. If we have a full grasp of our teachings, we can negotiate our weaknesses, always striving for growth. But without each vocation integrating the teachings actively and ‘out loud’, so to speak, nobody really knows what this Christianity of ours is supposed to look like.
We desist from causing pain because Christ would desist from causing pain. We refrain from revenge because Christ refrained from revenge. We persist in our beliefs, at whatever cost, because Christ persisted in His beliefs, even to the highest possible cost. We are followers of the Great Love embodied in the Son. We do not claim goodness. Rather we use it to point most accurately at the One we follow. We are Christians through the greatest and most sublime act of the Creator, that of becoming one of us. And so we take our turn in the perpetuation of Love, which, it must be said again, is very vast indeed."
Lay apostles, as you contemplate the last days of Jesus this week, think about how you have handled betrayals in the past. And after reading the quote from Anne's book, how will you face them in the future? See it for what it is . . . the enemy using whatever it takes to draw you off the path to heaven.
Thank you, Lord, for Your suffering in the last days of Your Life. Help us to remember the pain and betrayal You encountered from those who were the closest to Your Sacred Heart. And, forgive them as You did.
God bless,
Bonnie
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