Today, right before we enter into the Paschal Triduum we hear this Gospel passage about Juda’s betrayal of Jesus. We have spent around 5 weeks trying to deepen our relationship to God: praying, giving alms, being extra helpful to family and neighbors, fasting and abstaining from meat on Fridays, doing some extra spiritual reading, and so many other practices that we might have been doing. All this with the purpose of freeing ourselves of so many inordinate attachments in order to love more. Love is our baptismal call, and Lent is the time to prepare for renewal of our baptismal promises. This is a process in which we embark every year and yet, it is different every year. We come to Lent in different circumstances with different hopes and struggles every year and God’s invitation is always the same: “I love you no matter what, love one another as I love you.”

In reflecting on today’s gospel, it struck me how easily I blamed Judas for Jesus’ death and how fast I was to judge him. Then I remembered his circumstances. He wanted the liberation of Israel, he really thought that Jesus was the Messiah, he had followed him for a while, but he did not know him that well. Judas probably wanted for the kingdom of God to come in order to be liberated from Roman power, he interpreted God’s promise only as political, he did not understand that Jesus’s power was not of this world, although it was also meant to transform this world. Judas wanted for this political liberation to happen fast and he lost his patience in Jesus. He probably thought that giving him up would accelerate the process, he miss understood his call. Jesus wanted the conversion of hearts, Jesus showed us with his life how to love our enemies, to feed the hungry, to visit the incarcerated, to heal the sick, to console those grieving, to walk with one another in friendship and love. Jesus’ life was not about efficiency, but about love in service, trust and patience. Unfortunately, Judas missed the point and regretted it later.

I would like to invite us this holy triduum to pray in trust and patience for the coming of the kingdom of God, and to reflect on what the invitation for us is.