Our Brother Judas

[Note: Back by popular demand is guest blogger Brother Peter Veitch. Brother Peter Veitch, OSB is a professed religious brother in the Benedictines of Holy Wisdom, ECC. He is a retired teacher and artist who works with Lauren Urzetta co-facilitating the Spiritus LGBTQIA+ and Allies Small Christian Community and leading our mid day communion service on the last two Fridays of each month. Peter attended his friend David’s funeral at Corpus Christi in 1991 and has been a part of the Spiritus community since then. Thank you, Peter, for your contribution!]

Upon hearing the phrase ‘Last Supper’, most of us immediately recall Leonardo DaVinci’s version, one of the most frequently reproduced images in human history. The fresco appropriately adorns the wall of the dining room in the monastery of Santa Maria Della Grazie, in Milan. In the painting, the men gathered at table are excitedly gesturing, as if arguing. DaVinci presents a snapshot of the moment of Jesus’ disclosure that one of the twelve has betrayed him. The first blow in the passion occurs not at the hands of the Sanhedrin, or the Roman Authorities, but is dealt from one of his beloved friends.

Judas has agreed to lead the authorities to Jesus in exchange for thirty silver pieces. He later regrets having done so, returns the money and overcome with despair, hangs himself.

Don Primo Mazzolari, was a Northern Italian priest of the first part of the twentieth century. In the last months of his life, on Holy Thursday evening he preached a homily entitled ‘Nostro Fratello Giuda’, or ‘Our Brother Judas.’ In his dramatic Italian baritone, Don Primo began.

“My dear brothers and sisters, it is a scene of agony in the Cenacle, It’s dark outside and raining. In our church which has become the Cenacle, it is not rainy or dark, but there is a deep loneliness of hearts the burden of which Our Lord carries. There is a name which returns, a terrifying name: the name of Judas, the traitor.”

In the sermon, Don Primo challenges us to claim Judas as our own, not because we are so magnanimous, pure and merciful; but because the sin of Judas, despair, is common to all of us. A very shocking proposition in small town Italy, 1958.

For Don Primo, not only is Judas my brother, he and I are one. Just as a psychoanalyst might reveal that you were not simply a character in your dream, you were ALL of the characters in your dream, in the archetypal pageant of Holy Week, you and I are present in every character:

WE judge, we condemn, we mock and strike Him,

we help to shoulder the cross and wipe the face of Jesus.

You and I are His grieving friend and sorrowful mother,

we anoint His feet, we betray Him,

it is we who nail Him down

and we who claim His body and lay it to rest,

and in our finest moments

our actions reveal to others that He is risen.

At other times in life,

WE will be judged,

condemned, consoled, tormented,

challenged beyond reason to accept God’s will for us,

it is we who will fall under the weight of our burden

and we who will forgive.

In the end, we also will face death,

be wrapped in the love of Christ

and will be raised with Him

in the light of His Easter promise.

Don Primo is considered one of the unsung theological trailblazers of Vatican II, laying out the radical possibility that Judas, you and I are subject to the limitless, immeasurable Mercy, Forgiveness and Love of Our Lord. The teaching of Primo Mazzolari and others like him resulted in Pope John XXIII’s now historic proclamation at the beginning of the council to ‘open the windows and let in the fresh air.’  At the request of Pope Francis, Primo Mazzolari is deservedly being considered for canonization.

Pope Francis keeps a photograph on his desk of the capital of a medieval column in the Magdalene Basilica in Vezelay. There are two scenes carved into the stone. The first is of Judas hanging, a very gory and common depiction, the other is equally compelling for its tenderness; Jesus, the Good Shepherd, half-smiling, carries Judas away on His shoulders. It is Judas who has become the 100th sheep.

On Holy Thursday Evening Jesus insists on calling us friends:

‘No longer do I call you servants, for the servant does not know what the master is doing; but I have called you friends, for all that I have heard from my Father I have made known to you.’ John 15:15

In the words of Don Primo Mazzolari:

“Forgive me if this evening that should have been one of tenderness, I have brought you such painful considerations, but I also love Judas. Our brother Judas. I will pray for him again this evening, for I do not judge, I do not condemn. I should judge me; I should condemn myself.

I cannot but think that even for Judas, the mercy of God, the embrace of charity, the friend who betrayed the Lord while kissing Him, I cannot think that the word has not made its way into his poor heart.

Perhaps at the last moment, Judas has heard that the Lord still loved him and received him as His own. Perhaps the first apostle who entered behind Him with the two thieves. A procession that does not honor the Son of God, as some may conceive it, but that demonstrates the greatness of His Mercy.

And now, before resuming mass, let me think for a moment about the Judas I have within me, and the Judas that perhaps you have inside. And let me ask Jesus, Jesus who is in agony, Jesus who accepts us as we are, let me ask Him as a Paschal grace, to call me friend.

Easter is the word spoken to a poor Judas like me, told of the poor Judas like you. This is the joy: that Christ loves us, Christ forgives us, and Christ does not want us to despair. Even when we turn against Him, even when we blaspheme Him, even when we reject Christ at the last moment of our life, remember that for Him we will always be friends.”