From the responsorial psalm: “I will praise the name of God in song, and I will glorify him with thanksgiving: ‘See, you lowly ones, and be glad; you who seek God, may your hearts revive! For the LORD hears the poor, and his own who are in bonds he spurns not.’ Lord, in your great love, answer me.”
A reading from the holy Gospel according to Matthew (Mt 26:14-25, today’s readings)
When it was evening, he reclined at table with the Twelve. And while they were eating, he said, “Amen, I say to you, one of you will betray me.” Deeply distressed at this, they began to say to him one after another, “Surely it is not I, Lord?”
Matthew tells the story of Judas’s betrayal of Jesus. Aware of this, Jesus makes known that one of them will betray him. Having received payment from the chief priests, Judas’s response to Jesus seems odd: “Surely, it is not I, Rabbi.” Although he acknowledges Christ as his teacher, calling him Rabbi but not Lord, Judas at once denies his betrayal. Jesus holds a mirror up to Judas when he says, “You have said so.” In the same way, our inclination toward sin might cause us to deny willful participation in it even as we act on it. That’s the deep dysfunction that Jesus came to save us from, restoring us to God through his death and resurrection. In the verse before the Gospel, we hear his merciful response to sins that are ours, a cause to glorify him: “Hail to you, our King; you alone are compassionate with our errors.”
God, the betrayal of Judas is not an isolated event in the Gospel from long ago but relates to every person who struggles with sin and chooses that instead of choosing you. As he betrays Jesus, Judas not only pretends to be innocent but also deludes himself by thinking that he is not responsible for his choice to hand Jesus over. In choosing to do wrong with your gift of free will, Lord, how easy it is to betray you through sin, to reject you and deny responsibility. Give me the grace to stay with you at the table, even to be deeply distressed at the thought of betraying you, as the other disciples were. Keep me in your presence, Lord.
Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit, as it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, world without end. Amen.