Pope Francis On The Betrayal of Jesus

Below is the translation of the Holy Father’s catechesis today throughout his regular General Audience in St. Peter’s Square.

My Dear Brothers and Sisters, good morning!

Today, in the middle of Holy Week, the liturgy introduces to us a sad episode: the account of Judas’ betrayal, who goes to the heads of the Sanhedrin to bargain and hand over his Master to them. “How much will you give me if I hand him over to you?” At that moment, Jesus had a rate. This awful act marks the beginning of Christ’s Passion, the unpleasant way he chose with absolute liberty. He himself says it clearly: “I lay down my life … No one takes it from me. I lay it down of my own accord. I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it up again” (John: 17-18). And therefore, with this betrayal, the way begins of humiliation, of Jesus’ stripping. As if it was in the marketplace: this costs thirty denarii … Once the method of embarrassment and stripping is carried out, Jesus sees it through to the end.

Jesus reaches total embarrassment with his “death on the cross.” It is the worst death– that booked for servants and wrong-doers. Jesus was thought of as a prophet, but he died as a criminal. Looking at Jesus in his Passion, we view as in a mirror the sufferings of humankind and we find the divine answer to the secret of evil, of sorrow and of death. So often we perceive the horror of the evil and pain that surrounds us and we ask: “Why does God permit it?” It is a profound wound for us to see suffering and death, especially that of the innocent! When we see children suffering, it is a wound to the heart: it is the secret of evil. And Jesus takes upon himself all this evil, all this suffering. It will do us all good today to take a look at the crucifix, to kiss Jesus’ wounds, to kiss him on the cross. He took upon himself all human suffering, he dressed himself in this suffering.

We expect God, in His omnipotence, to beat injustice, evil, sin and experiencing a victorious divine victory. Instead, God shows us a simple victory which humanly appears a failure. We can say that God conquers in failure! In fact, the Son of God appears on the cross as a defeated man: he suffers, is betrayed, is hated and finally dies. Nevertheless, Jesus allows evil to surge on him and he takes it upon himself to beat it. His Passion is not an incident; his death– that death– was “written.” Truly, we do not find lots explanations. It is a disconcerting mystery, the mystery of God’s complete humbleness: “For God so loved the world that He gave His only Son” (John 3:16). We believe a lot of Jesus’ grief today and we say to ourselves: this is for me. Even if I were the only individual in the world, he would have done it. He did it for me. We kiss the crucifix and we say: for me, thank you Jesus, for me.

When all seems lost, when there is not any person due to the fact that they strike “the shepherd and the sheep of the flock will be spread” (Matthew 26:31), it is then that God steps in with the power of the Resurrection. Jesus’ Resurrection is not the happy closing of a stunning fable, it is not the delighted end of a movie, but it is the intervention of God the Father when human hope is ruined. In the moment where everything seems to be lost, in the moment of sorrow where lots of persons feel they have to come down from the cross; it is the minute closest to the resurrection. The night ends up being darker in fact before the morning starts, prior to the light starts. God intervenes in the darkest minute and resuscitates.

Jesus, who opted to pass through this life, calls us to follow him on his exact same means of humiliation. When in particular moments of life we find some ways to come out of our difficulties, when we sink into the thickest darkness, it is the moment of our humiliation and total stripping, the hour where we experience that we are fragile and sinners. It is in fact then, because minute, that we have to not mask our failure, however open ourselves with confidence to wish in God, as Jesus did. Dear brothers and sisters, it will do us good today to take the cross in hand and kiss it a lot, a lot and to say: thank you, Jesus, thank you, Lord. So be it.