- \n
- In the opening prayer of today\u2019s Mass, we asked God the Father for the grace \u201cso to celebrate the mysteries of the Lord\u2019s Passion that we may merit to receive your pardon.\u201d We can never strictly speaking merit the Lord\u2019s mercy \u2014 because it\u2019s always gratuitous \u2014 but we can merit, in a sense, to cooperate with it, to receive it well, to correspond to what God wishes to do in us through it. And today\u2019s readings help us to know how to celebrate the mysteries of the Lord\u2019s Passion in that way. Again today, we have in the first reading a look at what is happening from God\u2019s perspective through the fulfillment of what he said through the Prophet Isaiah; and in the Gospel we have the historical perspective of what was happening and how the intended recipients were meriting or failing to merit God\u2019s pardon. We see in the readings the strong contrast between glory and betrayal and also see not just the paradoxical connection between them but also the way from the latter to the former, namely the way of receiving and responding to God\u2019s gift of pardon. Grasping this connection is essential for us to enter into the depth of mysteries we celebrate in Holy Week.<\/li>\n
- In the first reading we encounter the second of four of the Suffering Servant Songs in Isaiah. We heard the first yesterday, will hear the third tomorrow, and on Good Friday will hear the last and most powerful of all. Today the Prophet begins by describing his own biography and foretells Jesus\u2019 own: \u201cThe Lord called me from birth,\u00a0from my mother\u2019s womb he gave me my name,\u201d something that happened when the Archangel appeared to Mary. Describing Jesus\u2019 hidden life in Nazareth and the way he would be a \u201ctwo-edged sword penetrating even soul and spirit\u201d (Heb 4:12), he continued: \u201cHe made of me a sharp-edged sword\u00a0and concealed me in the shadow of his arm.\u00a0He made me a polished arrow,\u00a0in his quiver he hid me.\u201d Then he turns to the tribulations he has suffered in his public ministry \u2014 the rejection of so many, the labelling of his words as diabolical, the hardened, rocky and thorny soil in response to what he was planting \u2014 and how God will bring good out of them. \u201cThough I thought I had toiled in vain,\u00a0and for nothing, uselessly, spent my strength, yet my reward is with the Lord,\u00a0my recompense is with my God.\u201d The purpose of all of them is to save Israel and save the world. \u201cFor now the Lord has spoken\u00a0who formed me as his servant from the womb, that Jacob may be brought back to him\u00a0and Israel gathered to him. \u2026\u00a0It is too little, he says, for you to be my servant,\u00a0to raise up the tribes of Jacob,\u00a0and restore the survivors of Israel;\u00a0I will make you a light to the nations,\u00a0that my salvation may reach to the ends of the earth.\u201d This\u00a0lumen gentium\u00a0<\/em>is going to be for his glory and for God the Father\u2019s glory. God pronounced earlier in the passage, \u201cYou are my servant \u2026\u00a0through whom I show my glory\u201d and here through his service in mercifully gathering back not only the lost tribes but the entire human race that glory of God will be shared with his servant: \u201cAnd I am made glorious in the sight of the Lord,\u00a0and my God is now my strength!\u201d That\u2019s what\u2019s happening from God\u2019s perspective.<\/li>\n
- In the Gospel today, Jesus picks up on that message of the glory of God and of his suffering servant. \u201cNow is the Son of Man glorified, and God is glorified in him,\u201d Jesus exclaims. \u201cIf God is glorified in him, God will also glorify him in himself,\u00a0and he will glorify him at once.\u201d The glory that Jesus is describing is the glory precisely of the epiphany of God\u2019s merciful love shown by Jesus in all that he was willing to do to save Israel and redeem the world. In the previous chapter of St. John\u2019s Gospel, after Jesus had said that he needed to go the path of the grain of wheat and die in order to bear fruit, he had prayed, \u201cI am troubled now. Yet what should I say? \u2018Father, save me from this hour\u2019? But it was for this purpose that I came to this hour. Father, glorify your name.\u201d Then St. John tells us that a voice came from heaven, saying, \u201cI have glorified it and will glorify it again.\u201d The crowd heard it and thought\u00a0it was thunder, Jesus interpreted it for all of them \u2014 including Judas and Peter and the other apostles \u2014\u00a0saying, \u201cThis voice did not come for my sake but for yours. Now is the time of judgment on this world; now the ruler of this world will be driven out. And when I am lifted up from the earth, I will draw everyone to myself.\u201d St. John finishes by saying, \u201cHe said this indicating the kind of death he would die.\u201d So his glory will be his exaltation and the triumph of his mercy.\u00a0We see a glimpse of that glory in how Jesus responds to the double-betrayal that is described before and after Jesus\u2019 words about his present (\u201cnow\u201d) and imminent (\u201cwill glorify\u201d) glorification in today\u2019s Gospel.<\/li>\n
- The first betrayal is by Judas. Jesus announces that one of the Twelve is about to betray him. Everyone was at a loss as to whom the traitor would be. In the other accounts, they were all saying, \u201cSurely it is not I, Lord.\u201d It shows not only how blind all of them were to their weakness \u2014 for they were all about to betray him \u2014 but just how masterful an actor Judas Iscariot was that he could have concealed his treachery from everyone except Jesus. But Jesus\u2019 words were not just a prophecy, but they were a call to mercy, a chance for Judas to recognize that what he was about to do was already known and a chance to change course. When Peter asks John (who was reclining on Jesus\u2019 right) to ask Jesus who it is, Jesus replied, \u201cIt is the one to whom I hand the morsel after I have dipped it.\u201d Then he gave it to Judas. In this gesture there are two great signs of Jesus\u2019 mercy toward Judas that those who don\u2019t understand the culture of Jesus\u2019 time will miss. The first is that to give someone food as Jesus gave to Judas was a sign of tremendous respect. It was an act of tender love. The fact that Jesus was able to give it to Judas was another sign. Meals like the Last Supper would take place in the form of a U with the principal host at the head of the curve. There were no tables per se, everyone would recline on his left arm leaving the right arm to eat. They would lie angled to the table so that the head of the one on one\u2019s right would basically be in the chest of the one on his left. That\u2019s how it\u2019s said that St. John, who was on Jesus\u2019 right, was leaning on his breast. The host would always place the guest of honor on his left. The fact that Jesus could give the morsel to Judas meant that Judas was seated as the guest of honor. Jesus was resting his head in Judas\u2019 breast. But even that sign of honor didn\u2019t suffice. When Judas received the morsel \u2014 we don\u2019t know whether it was Jesus\u2019 body or just a piece of bread \u2014 St. John tells us, \u201cSatan entered into him.\u201d Jesus could see it. His works of presenting another path to his freedom hadn\u2019t gotten him to convert. So Jesus said to him, \u201cWhat you are going to do, do quickly.\u201d He didn\u2019t embarrass him. He didn\u2019t expose him. If the other apostles knew what he was about to do, he likely would never have been able to leave the Upper Room. Jesus would give him another chance when he would call him \u201cFriend\u201d later in the Garden, but Judas betrayed him with a sign of love, blistering his cheek with a kiss of betrayal.\u00a0The great sadness is that Judas would be dead before even Jesus breathed his last<\/em>, that this was the last night of Judas\u2019 life, that Satan was not only trying to\u00a0manipulate Judas to betray Jesus to death but also to betray\u00a0himself and commit suicide.\u00a0<\/em>What a tragedy!\u00a0Unlike, however, the Good Thief who took advantage of the Lord\u2019s mercy, Judas was choosing Satan in his heart rather than God. Nevertheless, when Judas went out into the \u201cnight\u201d \u2014 he was already in darkness \u2014 Jesus began to speak of his glory, because God was going to bring that glory out of his betrayal, the light out of the darkness of betrayal.<\/li>\n
- We also see another betrayal, that of Peter. After Jesus describes that his apostles can\u2019t come where he is going now but will come later \u2014 he\u2019s talking about death and resurrection \u2014 Peter protests, saying \u201cI will lay down my life for you.\u201d But Jesus tells him, much to the fisherman\u2019s incredulity, \u201cWill you lay down your life for me?\u00a0Amen, amen, I say to you, the cock will not crow\u00a0before you deny me three times.\u201d As we hear in St. Luke\u2019s account of the Passion in\u00a0Jesus\u2019 words to Peter\u00a0about vigilance and prayer in the Garden of Gethsemane, Peter\u2019s spirit was willing but his flesh was weak. Peter\u2019s humiliating betrayal of Jesus, however, would not only lead to the glory of Jesus\u2019 mercy as Jesus would give Peter after the Resurrection a three-fold reconstituting commission out of love for him to feed and tend his sheep and lambs, but it would also lead to Peter\u2019s glory, as he would follow Jesus as another would stretch out his arms and drag him in crucifixion to a place he didn\u2019t want to go. The difference between Peter\u2019s betrayal and Judas\u2019 was that Judas\u2019 was one of calculation, Peter\u2019s one of weakness.\u00a0And after their betrayals, Judas only had remorse; Peter had repentance.<\/em>\u00a0Judas had never grasped all of Jesus\u2019 words and deeds about God\u2019s mercy, his parables of the lost sheep, coin, and Son, his forgiving sinners like the woman caught in adultery. Peter had grasped this and that if the Lord were calling him to forgive 70 times 7 times, then the Lord, too, would be merciful even after a betrayal. This is a\u00a0great lesson for us, if we learn from Peter and come back to the Lord to ask for forgiveness in the way Jesus himself established.\u00a0<\/em>That is the way we can enter into the Lord\u2019s glory. That is the way we can merit to receive God\u2019s pardon. That is the way to live Holy Week.<\/li>\n
- As we now enter into the same Last Supper in which today\u2019s Gospel scene occurred, we ask the Lord for the grace never to betray him through calculation and to strengthen us to minimize our betrayals out of weakness by the morsels of his own life that he will put into our mouths. We ask him to give us an ever greater trust in his mercy if we leave this morning Supper and betray him by weakness. We ask him through this Holy Communion to convince us, like he convinced his apostles, of the path of Christian glory, which is the path of self-sacrificial merciful love, so that we may be glorified with him in the eternal glory of the Father.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
The readings for today\u2019s Mass were:\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n
\nReading 1
\nIS 49:1-6<\/a><\/h4>\nHear me, O islands,
\nlisten, O distant peoples.
\nThe LORD called me from birth,
\nfrom my mother\u2019s womb he gave me my name.
\nHe made of me a sharp-edged sword
\nand concealed me in the shadow of his arm.
\nHe made me a polished arrow,
\nin his quiver he hid me.
\nYou are my servant, he said to me,
\nIsrael, through whom I show my glory.<\/div>\nThough I thought I had toiled in vain,
\nand for nothing, uselessly, spent my strength,
\nYet my reward is with the LORD,
\nmy recompense is with my God.
\nFor now the LORD has spoken
\nwho formed me as his servant from the womb,
\nThat Jacob may be brought back to him
\nand Israel gathered to him;
\nAnd I am made glorious in the sight of the LORD,
\nand my God is now my strength!
\nIt is too little, he says, for you to be my servant,
\nto raise up the tribes of Jacob,
\nand restore the survivors of Israel;
\nI will make you a light to the nations,
\nthat my salvation may reach to the ends of the earth.<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\nResponsorial Psalm
\nPS 71:1-2, 3-4A, 5AB-6AB, 15 AND 17<\/a><\/h4>\nR. (see 15ab)\u00a0I will sing of your salvation.
\nIn you, O LORD, I take refuge;
\nlet me never be put to shame.
\nIn your justice rescue me, and deliver me;
\nincline your ear to me, and save me.
\nR.\u00a0I will sing of your salvation.
\nBe my rock of refuge,
\na stronghold to give me safety,
\nfor you are my rock and my fortress.
\nO my God, rescue me from the hand of the wicked.
\nR.\u00a0I will sing of your salvation.
\nFor you are my hope, O Lord;
\nmy trust, O God, from my youth.
\nOn you I depend from birth;
\nfrom my mother\u2019s womb you are my strength.
\nR.\u00a0I will sing of your salvation.
\nMy mouth shall declare your justice,
\nday by day your salvation.
\nO God, you have taught me from my youth,
\nand till the present I proclaim your wondrous deeds.
\nR.\u00a0I will sing of your salvation.<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\nGospel
\nJN 13:21-33, 36-38<\/a><\/h4>\n
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