This morning, in his homily Father D. brings up the question, “Both Judas and Peter rejected Jesus—but only one is called ‘the Betrayer.’ Why?”
Here’s the Bible passage (John 13:21–33, 36–38) for your reference:
Reclining at table with his disciples, Jesus was deeply troubled and testified, "Amen, amen, I say to you, one of you will betray me."
The disciples looked at one another, at a loss as to whom he meant. One of his disciples, the one whom Jesus loved, was reclining at Jesus' side. So Simon Peter nodded to him to find out whom he meant.
He leaned back against Jesus' chest and said to him, "Master, who is it?"
Jesus answered, "It is the one to whom I hand the morsel after I have dipped it."
So he dipped the morsel and took it and handed it to Judas, son of Simon the Iscariot. After Judas took the morsel, Satan entered him.
So Jesus said to him, "What you are going to do, do quickly."
Now none of those reclining at table realized why he said this to him.
Some thought that since Judas kept the money bag, Jesus had told him, "Buy what we need for the feast," or to give something to the poor.
So Judas took the morsel and left at once. And it was night.
When he had left, Jesus said, "Now is the Son of Man glorified, and God is glorified in him. If God is glorified in him, God will also glorify him in himself, and he will glorify him at once. My children, I will be with you only a little while longer. You will look for me, and as I told the Jews, 'Where I go you cannot come,' so now I say it to you."
Simon Peter said to him, "Master, where are you going?"
Jesus answered him, "Where I am going, you cannot follow me now, though you will follow later."
Peter said to him, "Master, why can I not follow you now? I will lay down my life for you."
Jesus answered, "Will you lay down your life for me? Amen, amen, I say to you, the cock will not crow before you deny me three times."
When Jesus got arrested later that night, and some townsfolk recognized Peter as one of his followers, Peter got scared and denied three times that he knew Jesus. The third time, the cock crowed and Peter, in horror, realized what he had done. The Bible says, “He broke down and wept.”
So what makes him different from Judas?
“The difference,” says Father D., “is that Judas betrayed Jesus with full knowledge. It was premeditated; he clearly had a plan. Note the line: After Judas took the morsel, Satan entered him. Peter, on the other hand, loved Jesus and wanted to follow and obey him, but in that moment when he was called out as one of Jesus’s disciples—at that moment when he realized what it would cost him—his human weakness got the better of him.”
In truth, all of us suffer from that same human weakness as Peter, and even when we’re striving to be faithful followers of Christ, we are bound to stumble and fall… especially once we realize what being a true disciple will cost us. That “dying to yourself” part is not an easy thing to do. What’s important is that we pick ourselves back up and keep going. God in His infinite mercy will forgive us if we sincerely repent.
Which brings me to another important difference between Judas and Peter. Judas, full of sorrow about what he had done, eventually went and hanged himself. He despaired, thinking that his sin was too great for God to forgive him.
In St. Catherine of Siena’s Dialogue, God tells her that even Judas could have been forgiven, had he only believed that God’s mercy is endless. That was his greatest sin—to believe that he had done something so vile and despicable that it was beyond forgiveness. In believing this, he basically declared himself and his own sin to be greater than God.
Peter, in contrast, threw himself at the feet of the Lord begging for mercy and forgiveness for what he had done.
The difference in outcome couldn’t be any starker: One of them went to hell, the other was made the leader of Christ’s Church.
It’s not for nothing that Satan is called “the Accuser.” He constantly bombards us with thoughts that we’re not good enough to be loved by God, not holy enough to be wanted by God, and too dirty and disgusting to be forgiven by God. And he no doubt whispered into Judas’s ear that no, this time he’d gone too far, this time there would be no return from the abyss.
This is the great lie, and don’t you believe it. As long as you draw breath, there’s still time to turn around—no matter what you’ve done and how low you’ve sunken. All it takes is to throw yourself at the feet of the cross and ask Jesus for mercy.
As I’m writing this, VatiGod* chimes in by showing me a great example of perseverance. I’m way behind in my Magnificat, and as I’m trying to catch up, today I open the Mass readings from March 13… and providentially find this description of St. Paul of the Cross (1694–1775). Even though he founded the very successful Passionist Order, he endured years of vicious attacks from Satan making him doubt his vocation:
“The devil used to suggest great fears to me… interior desolation, melancholy, and dread. I felt that I would not succeed in persevering in my manner of living. The devil gave me fancies that I had been taken, that I should serve God in some other way.” He lost all sense of devotion. “Everyone seemed happy except me,” he wrote.
But despite these extreme challenges, St. Paul of the Cross maintained his good humor, enthusiasm, and confidence in God. He wrote in a letter to a friend:
“You have signs as clear as the sun that the Lord wishes to make you holy, and you allow yourself to be upset by the devil with scarecrows of being damned? Never again tell me such things.”
VatiGod knows we’re not perfect. He loves us anyway. All He wants for us is to keep trying. Never give up… and never doubt His capacity for mercy and forgiveness.
God bless you!
*My personal term of endearment for God the Father (“Vati” (pronounced fuh-tee) means Daddy in German).
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