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GospelThink

April 16, Wednesday of Holy Week

MATTHEW 26:14-25

Betrayal

Prayerthoughts

a. Judas is out for personal gain in the form of money. Do I love the power and privilege of money and allow it to rule my choices?

b. Judas was looking for an opportunity to betray him. I should be the opposite—looking for the opportunity to make the Lord more and more a part of my life.

c. The Passover was an important feast for the Israelites—a commemoration of the Lord “passing over” the Israelite people during the final plague in Moses’s time. Do I celebrate religious feast days, including Sunday, in a proper way?

d. The Apostles were deeply distressed. What concerns me the most in our world right now?

e. Jesus’s words: “Woe to that man by whom the Son of Man is betrayed.” We have not betrayed Jesus outright, but we may have forgotten him at times.

f. Jesus’s words: “It would be better for that man if he had never been born.” What was Judas’s principal problem?

g. My prayerthoughts…

Today I will write my own obituary as I would like it to read when I die.

Some Thoughts on the Liturgy

A STUDY IN SELFISHNESS

+ The so-called third song of the servant of Yahweh in the first reading from Isaiah continues the thought that the Messiah will suffer,

- but in the end will triumph

+ But there was to be real suffering in the Messiah’s life, both physically and mentally

- here in Matthew’s Gospel, the mental suffering of having one of your closest friends—one you had chosen as an intimate—betray you

- and in yesterday’s Gospel, the same thing along with Peter’s denial prediction

+ Why did Judas betray Jesus?

- there were probably some religious/philosophically-based reasons

- resembling what the chief priests and Pharisees were ostensibly worried about

- namely, that if he were to pursue his Kingdom thought, the Kingdom of Rome would crush them

- but those reasons were more for show than anything else

- the real reason had to do with personal gain or selfishness

+ It is only fitting on the last day of the Lenten season, preparing immediately for the Sacred Triduum that we consider the principal problem for the spiritual life that we all have—

- personal gain or selfishness

- the first day of Lent the liturgy presented the three standard ways to attack selfishness: prayer, fasting and almsgiving

+ And the way to fight that selfishness in our lives right now is to carefully review our motivation:

- “why” do we do the things that we do

- in whatever undertaking we study, our spiritual thought ought to be that we do what we do with pure intentions, that is, not for personal gain

- I should be concerned for other people, and if I am not, then there is probably a problem with selfishness

+ If there is a problem that will keep the spiritual life from developing, it is selfishness

- and it takes real effort to attack it.  

MARK 15:24-57

They brought Jesus to the place of Golgotha. They gave him wine drugged with myrrh, but he did not take it. Then they crucified him and divided his garments by casting lots for them to see what each should take. It was nine o'clock in the morning when they crucified him. The inscription of the charge against him read, "The King of the Jews." With him they crucified two revolutionaries, one on his right and one on his left. Those passing by reviled him, shaking their heads and saying, "Aha! You would destroy the temple and rebuild it in three days, save yourself by coming down from the cross." Likewise the chief priests, with the scribes, mocked him among themselves and said, "He saved others, he cannot save himself. Let the Messiah, the King of Israel, come down now from the cross that we may see and believe." Those who were crucified with him also kept abusing him.
    At noon darkness came over the whole land until three in the afternoon. And at three o'clock Jesus cried out in a loud voice, ..."My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?"...Jesus gave a loud cry and breathed his last. The veil of the sanctuary was torn in two from top to bottom. When the centurion who stood facing him saw how he breathed his last he said, "Truly this man was the Son of God!" There were also women looking on from a distance. Among them were Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of the younger James and of Joses, and Salome....
    When it was already evening, since it was the day of preparation, the day before the Sabbath, Joseph of Arimathea, a distinguished member of the council, who was himself awaiting the kingdom of God, came and courageously went to Pilate and asked for the body of Jesus....Having brought a linen cloth, he took him down, wrapped him in the linen cloth and laid him in a tomb that had been hewn out of the rock. Then he rolled a stone against the entrance to the tomb. Mary Magdalene and Mary the mother of Jesus watched where he was laid.

Gospelthink: Jesus dies for me and all on the cross. I should take the time to offer a prayer of thanksgiving for what the Lord has done for us.