Carry the gospel with you

Gospel reading of the day:

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.”

Reflection on the gospel reading: The reading from the gospel today speaks about two betrayals, Judas’s and Peter’s, and by inference, it speaks of a third betrayal, our own. Jesus predicts that one of the 12 will betray him to the authorities, and the Beloved Disciple asks Jesus who will turn on him. Jesus answers, “It is the one to whom I hand the morsel after I have dipped it,” and he offers to Judas a sign of friendship, a small portion of food. In the moment that Jesus tells Judas to do quickly what he plans to do, Judas makes his fateful choice and leaves the Lord and his friends.

The evangelist in the gospel often contrasts light and dark, and he poignantly observes at the departure of Judas that, “It was night”: darkness has settled in and about the Lord and his companions. And yet in this moment, Jesus still can say that the time has come for Jesus to be glorified. This is the very theme that I have tried to relate over and again the last several weeks, that God reveals Godself in the darkest moments. Even in the moment of betrayal, even at night, even when all is apparently lost, God is there, doing what God does, transforming the moment and making it something entirely new.

There is a second betrayal that the gospel addresses. This betrayal is Peter’s, Peter who brashly suggests he is prepared to die with Jesus when Jesus knows that Peter is not at all prepared to make such a sacrifice. Because this story appears in each of the gospels, Peter certainly in later years must have spoken of the incident over and over again: it obviously made a deep impression that Jesus knew Peter would betray him a certain number of times before a certain specific event. Peter doubtless told the story to make clear the importance of conversion and repentance and the Lord’s openness to receive back to himself those who betray him.

And so it with us as we move to the conclusion of our Lenten journey: we too repent over and over again of the same sins, hoping never to do again those things that over and over have injured our connection to God, and Jesus, over and over again, receives us back. Even when night descends on us, when the gloom of self-accusation and guilt is thick about us, let us dare to know, even with perfect confidence, that God will do for us what we cannot do for ourselves and ask the Lord that he will help us as we stumble along our way. Let us hope and believe that God stands by us to glorify us even in our betrayal.

Saint of the day: Henry Walpole was a English Jesuit martyr who was born at Docking, Norfolk in 1558. He was the eldest son of Christopher and Margery Walpole. He was educated at Norwich School, Peterhouse, Cambridge, and Gray’s Inn. He was converted to Catholicism by the death of Blessed Edward Campion. Henry Walpole went by way of Rouen and Paris, to Reims, where he arrived in July 1582 and in April 1583, he was admitted into the English College, Rome.

In February 1584, he entered the Society of Jesus and soon after went to France, where he continued his studies, chiefly at Pont-à-Mousson. He was ordained a priest at Paris in December 1588. After acting as chaplain to the Spanish forces in the Netherlands, suffering imprisonment by the English at Flushing in 1589, and being moved about to Brussels, Tournai, Bruges, and Spain, he was at last sent on the mission in 1590. He was arrested landing at Flamborough, and imprisoned at York. The following February he was sent to the Tower, where he was frequently and severely racked. He remained there until, in the spring of 1595, he was sent back to York for trial. Condemned, he was executed on April 7, 1595.

Spiritual reading: Remember: if you want to make progress on the path and ascend to the places you have longed for,

the important thing is not to think much but to love much, and so to do whatever best awakens you to love. (Teresa of Avila)