The Day Freedom Failed

Today is "Spy Wednesday", the day we remember Judas the betrayer. His story is such a significant lesson for us all. It is scary how much God respects the freedom He gave us. We are free - now what? God gave us freedom to do not what we want, rather to do what we ought. Freedom is fulfilled in love, in doing what is good. Freedom is failed when we sin, in doing what is bad.

We know that the Lord never gives up on anyone. Like a GPS, God immediately starts recalculating at our every wrong turn. Up to the moment of death the offer of Divine Mercy is extended. This is the best way to understand what Jesus did at the last supper. The warning of betrayal and offering of the morsel was an invitation to freedom and repentance. "To God, all moments of time are present in their immediacy. When therefore he establishes his eternal plan of 'predestination', he includes in it each person's free response to his grace ... For the sake of accomplishing his plan of salvation, God permitted the acts that flowed from their blindness" (CCC #600). Judas was not forced into betrayal, he was free.

Might I suggest that there is a little bit of Judas in us all? Every sin is a betrayal, some bigger than others. Invited to love and goodness, we sometime miss the mark. There is a connection between the offered morsel and the kiss of Judas. If only that kiss meant what a kiss is suppose to mean! Today is a good day to pray for all those, especially among us clergy, who have betrayed Christ, betrayed the gift of freedom.

+ Fr. Luke Mary Fletcher, CFR
Yonkers, NY
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