Holy Tuesday

In the early literature, we meet several examples of tragic heroes. Before their death they experience Abandonment Issues, How to deal with abandonment issues in Your Relationships, when you are totally abandoned by your loved ones, you need to handle them attentively. Similarly, Jesus is abandoned by the human persons whom he loved very much one by one: Judas, Peter and other disciples. Jesus is addressing them indirectly to the persons first, then telling them also directly. 

Judas: is a figure of one of the disciples, therefore a figure belonging to the group of those whom Jesus had chosen as strict companions and collaborators. It was repeatedly written in the gospels as "one of the twelve" (Mt 26: 14, 47; Mk 14: 10, 20; Jn 6: 71) or "of the number of the twelve" (Lk 22: 3). Betrayal and denial are part of his discipleship, one has to undergo even though it is a painful process with the hope of grace of resurrection.

Then you may ask this question, "Then Why did Jesus choose him/call him?" The mystery of the choice remains, all the more since Jesus pronounces a very severe judgment on him: "Woe to that man by whom the Son of man is betrayed!" (Mt 26: 24).

There are three biblical motivations for Judas' behavior: why does he betray Jesus? 

1. Greedy for money: What is the worth of 30 pieces of silver today? Historians agree that most probably, Judas was paid in Tyrian Shekel. This is because the Tyrian shekel was the currency used during the era to pay for the Temple tax in Jerusalem. So, if half a shekel was two days’ salary, one shekel was four days’ salary and therefore, 30 shekels were worth 4 months’ salary (120 days’ salary). He decided to betray the Lord for this invalid money. 

2. Judas was a zealot: Judas was part of this political-militaristic group who were fighting for their nation's liberation from the Romans. Judas learned that this is not possible for Jesus' preference for the kingdom of God through ministry to the poor. Judas would have been disappointed at seeing that Jesus did not fit into his program for the political-militaristic liberation of his own nation. 

3. Satan entered into Judas: Luke expressly says that Then Satan entered into Judas called Iscariot" (Lk 22: 3). It was not the personal initiative of Judas but voluntary act of devil, but with the freedom based on the personal responsibility of Judas, who shamefully ceded to a temptation of the Evil One.

The third one seems to be valid for me. Jesus has planned/predestined everything according to the thought of God. Your names are written in the palm of God. But He respects you to act in freedom. attention to the work of the devil here. Jesus does not force his will or protect it from the temptations of Satan, respecting human freedom. It is a combat between a disciple and the devil. Peter put everything on his own shoulders not allowing God to act at all saying, “Master, why can I not follow you now? I will lay down my life for you.”  Let us remember that one of the easiest manifestations of Satan is Ego.  

Let us remember two things in the cases of Peter and Judas.

1. Jesus respects our freedom. 

2. Jesus awaits our openness to repentance and conversion; he is rich in mercy and forgiveness. 

Judas also repented, but his repentance generated desperation and thus became self-destructive. The word "to betray" is the version of a Greek word that means "to consign". Do not surrender at any cost, at any moment. Sometimes the subject is even God in person: it was he who for love "consigned" Jesus for all of us (Rm 8: 32). In his mysterious salvific plan, God assumes Judas' inexcusable gesture as the occasion for the total gift of the Son for the redemption of the world.

SIN cannot be the last word; the last word is God's MERCY. Easter time is the adequate time. On the Cross, Christ opens his arms wide to all of us, nobody is excluded. Every repented thief has his place in Paradise. On condition, however, to change his life and remedy his shortcomings, like the thief in the Gospel: “And indeed, we have been condemned justly, for the sentence we received corresponds to our crimes, but this man has done nothing criminal” (Lk 23:41).