The Catholic Calendar for Wednesday, April 12, 2006
Wednesday of Holy Week

Scripture from today's Liturgy of the Word:
Isaiah 50:5-9
Psalm 69:8-10, 21-22, 31 and 33-34
Matthew 26:14-25

A reflection on today's Sacred Scripture:

Today we are in the middle of Holy Week, and the tragedy is now being played out. Judas, one of the inner twelve disciples, a man who had followed Jesus, who saw His miracles, participated in His ministry and knew what Jesus was teaching, betrays his master. He not only turned his back on Jesus, but also gave Him up for thirty pieces of silver. And knowing full well what he was doing, Judas tried to deny his plan as he ate the Passover meal with the Lord.

What drives a man to betray another? Greed or jealousy? Perhaps we will never fully understand. But what we should learn from this is that there may be times we turn our backs on the Lord and betray Him in much more subtle ways than Judas did. There are times when we should be sharing our Christian lives with others and there are times when we should be speaking up or doing something about the mistreatment of others, or the battling, or the injustice in our world, or caring for the poor and sick.

Each time we fail to keep Christ foremost in our lives we betray Him once again and are part of his crucifixion and death. This is what we need to learn from today’s gospel. Let us pray for the strength, faith and discernment that we need to never again turn our backs on Him.

- Don Claunch, SFO
(dlclaunch at bresnan dot net)

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