What does it cost?

Meditation for Holy Week Retreat

Tuesday of Holy Week

26 March 2024

St. Lawrence Catholic Campus Center at the University of Kansas

I'm not gonna lie.  This meditation today is no fun.  This holy hour is not for the faint of heart.  Meditate at your own risk.  For today is Spy Tuesday.  And that means something personal for me.  It means that I have to come to grips with the fact that my soul is for sale.  My faith can be bought.  There is something for which I would hand Jesus over.

This sin of betrayal pops up in the Gospel, and I usually try to avoid thinking about it.  But today I can't.  Today I must not.  At that moment, Satan entered him.  Woe to the man who betrays Jesus.  It would be better for that man if he had never been born.  All sins will be forgiven, except sins against the Holy Spirit.  Whoever does not believe has already been condemned, for He has not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God.

Ruthless passages.  Devastating truths from our Lord.  A reminder that I am free to create my own hell, if I wish.  Jesus desperately wants to save me from that hell I could choose.  He is desperate to save me.  He is in anguish about losing me. He doesn't know how to live without me.  Yet He will not take back my freedom to betray him.  If I am free to love Him to the end, to be faithful to the point of death, then I am also free to betray Him.

Yes one of you. Yes one of my most intimate friends will betray me. Yes, one of you.  Yes, one of you seated at my Eucharistic table.  The most intimate communion possible is also the locus of the greatest betrayal possible.  Satan entered him.  It would be better if he had never been born.

You know this hell well.  Jesus, leave me alone.  Depart from me, for I am a sinful man. I am not worth it, not good enough, and never will be.  I am the sum of my worst mistakes, and my judgment that I am a selfish loser, a coward and a quitter.  Leave me alone Jesus.  Let me go into the darkness, where I can be alone with my judgments, privacy and choices.  You couldn't possibly want to forgive me more than yesterday, not 70x7 times.  Your mercy is too scary, too real - leave me alone.  It doesn't matter anymore. I don't care.  I quit.

The battle played out at that first Eucharistic table is the same battle for your soul right now, that will never get less dramatic.  For the freedom to love always retains the freedom to betray.

Lord Jesus, let me bring to you my desire to despair, deny you and betray you.  In your mercy, hold me here at your table, hold me with the gaze of your merciful eyes, and have mercy on me.