“Sunday Reflection” is a regular feature, looking at the specific readings used in today’s Mass in Catholic parishes around the world. The reflection represents only my own point of view, intended to help prepare myself for the Lord’s day and perhaps spark a meaningful discussion.  Previous Sunday Reflections from the main page can be found here.  For previous Green Room entries, click here.

This morning’s Gospel reading is John 17:11b–19:

Lifting up his eyes to heaven, Jesus prayed, saying: “Holy Father, keep them in your name that you have given me, so that they may be one just as we are one. When I was with them I protected them in your name that you gave me, and I guarded them, and none of them was lost except the son of destruction, in order that the Scripture might be fulfilled. But now I am coming to you. I speak this in the world so that they may share my joy completely. I gave them your word, and the world hated them, because they do not belong to the world any more than I belong to the world. I do not ask that you take them out of the world but that you keep them from the evil one. They do not belong to the world any more than I belong to the world. Consecrate them in the truth. Your word is truth. As you sent me into the world, so I sent them into the world. And I consecrate myself for them, so that they also may be consecrated in truth.”

Today’s readings give us a couple of glimpses of the challenges of the Apostles after the Resurrection, and remind us of the struggles and uncertainty that they experienced while establishing the church Jesus promised would prevail for all eternity. We sometimes forget the humanity of these disciples, their own difficulties in keeping faith, and see the post-Ascension period as one straight line to universal evangelization. These teach us another lesson, not of unbridled success but the victory of faith, hope, and love despite all obstacles, seen and unforeseen.

The Gospel reading shows that Jesus understood all too well that what followed the Passion would be very dangerous for His disciples — not in terms of worldly dangers as much as the spiritual warfare that would follow. They had already stood up to the hate that Jesus’ teachings attracted, but they would face the fury of “the evil one” once the plan of salvation unfolded. And Jesus knew that He must send them out into the world anyway, and that only through that evangelization could mankind hope for true reconciliation with God.

Traveling, as I can attest personally, is a disconnecting experience. I mentioned this two weeks ago in another Sunday reflection, but it’s worth noting here briefly as well. The disorientation and the loneliness that a lack of familiar human contact brings leaves one remarkably exposed to the temptations of sin, especially of despair. Even with the gift of the Holy Spirit, these Apostles would need to constantly remind themselves of the joy of their mission, to recall these words of Jesus constantly in the face of adversity, danger, and circumstances that would bring any other human being to the brink of surrender to sin.

Of course, one didn’t even need to travel to fall prey to the sin of despair. In our first reading this morning, Peter discussed with the nascent church of the need to replace Judas, who had betrayed Jesus at the Passion and then went out and killed himself. He “was the guide for those who arrested Jesus,” Peter says (Acts 1:15-17), “he was numbered among us and was allotted a share in this ministry.” Yet with so great a mission — and so great a reason to hope for the future, both his and his fellow men and women — Judas chose to betray Jesus, and then commit suicide.

There are lots of possible reasons for Judas to have chosen to betray Jesus. My favorite theory — and it’s just a theory — is that Judas wanted Jesus to become a warlord conqueror, saw that Jesus wasn’t going to take that path willingly, and tried to force Jesus into Judas’ own ideas of the Messiah. If so, Judas put his own will in front of God’s, and put the Lord to the test, both tremendously arrogant sins. Or he could simply be greedy; John makes an implicit accusation in 12:3-6 to that effect.

There could be plenty of reasons why Judas betrayed Jesus, but there is only one reason for Judas to have hanged himself afterward: a loss of faith and hope. Judas could have simply decided that he’d done the right thing and leveraged his action to win favor with the Sanhedrin and gained a place of power in the temple authority structure. Instead, Judas attempted to repent by giving back the thirty silver pieces he’d been paid to betray Jesus (Matthew 27:3-5). The chief priests offered nothing for his repentance, however, and that left Judas without any other options — or so he thought. He could have repented properly and atoned for his sins with the other disciples and accepted Jesus as his savior, but instead he chose despair and its ultimate end, death and rejection of the Lord.

Contrast this with the rest of the scene in Acts today. Jesus has risen, but the church is still under siege from the temple authorities and the Romans. It has grown to 120 people or so, but still unsure of what direction to take, and missing one of its leaders after Judas’ betrayal. Instead of falling into betrayal, Peter assumes the mantle of leadership to rebuild the core of the church. He relies on Scripture — Psalm 109, a prayer for justice against the wicked — to decide that Judas must be replaced rather than just dropped from the rolls of the disciples.

It’s a bold move, and one that sets the stage for apostolic succession throughout the life of the church. But how to make that decision? Peter and the other Apostles put their faith in the Holy Spirit, trusting that He will guide them in keeping the church on the right path. They started with prayer, asking for His intervention, and trusted in the result. Peter, a man who had not been any kind of organizer prior to his joining Jesus, had trusted in the Lord and emerged as the leader who would begin the process of evangelizing the world and create the most enduring organization in history.

The crossing directions of Judas and Peter show the gift offered by Jesus in today’s readings. It’s not a life of ease, of high regard by worldly people, or even of unchallenged foreknowledge. It’s a life of faith, of hope, of trust in the Lord rather than our own devices. It’s a life of service to God by service to others in true charity, and the promise that our faithfulness will bring us to the divine presence rather than to the blackness of despair. The choice is ours, but Jesus’ promise to His disciples extends to us through that same succession as we choose to follow Him.

The front-page image is a statue at the Church of the Primacy of St. Peter in Tabgha, Israel on the Galilee, from my own photo collection.