By Charlie Johnston
Today is the commemoration of the Last Supper and an anniversary, of sorts, of Jesus’ betrayal by His disciple, Judas. (Once, when my kids were little, I pointed to a carving of The Last Supper by Leonardo DaVinci at the back of the Church as we left and asked if either of them knew what that was. My little daughter immediately responded that it was, “The First Feast.” I started to correct her, but caught myself…for she was literally correct – but I digress.)
Most believe that Judas was simply a grifting thief who had lost his faith. I have a different point of view. If my interpretation is correct it significantly illuminates what the heart of Judas’ sin was – which is different than what we usually think. It serves as a vital warning to each of us in these times. Finally, it fits all the facts involved in Judas’ betrayal into a seamless, coherent narrative.
I was always bothered by Judas’ suicide after Jesus was taken. If he had lost his faith and no longer believed in Jesus, why would he commit suicide after the betrayal? What did he expect would happen other than what actually did? It is possible, but quite unlikely, that he would react in this fashion with such cynical, disillusioned malice in his heart.
I think that Judas was convinced that Jesus was the Messiah and his faith was unaltered. But I also think Judas, like all Jews of his time (including John the Baptist until shortly before his death) expected the Messiah to be a great political and military leader who would overthrow the Romans and restore the state of Israel to greatness. After over three years of traipsing around the desert and preaching to increasingly large crowds, who nonetheless were still just a tiny fraction of the whole population of the area, Judas wanted to get this show finally rolling. So he acted to force Jesus’ hand, to create a set of circumstances where Jesus would finally have to reveal His mighty power. I believe Judas thought his actions would finally spark the revolt he so longed for. That would explain why he committed suicide – because things did not work out at all as he had expected. It would also explain why, after Jesus told him, “What you are going to do, do quickly” at the Last Supper, Judas departed so eagerly to finish the betrayal. If he thought this would spark the overthrow of the Romans, his warped sensibility might have even interpreted this as Jesus’ tacit approval of his intentions.
If this is an accurate summary of the motivations involved, Judas’ fundamental error was not greed, nor malice, nor even loss of faith. If he was, indeed, a zealous believer, Judas’ fundamental sin was to take a little knowledge and a vast misunderstanding of what the Messiah’s actual aim was and then substitute his own judgment for the Master’s. It was neither cynicism nor greed, but vanity and hubris. It was when his plan blew up in his face that Judas went into despair and lost his faith, now believing his actions had cost the life of an innocent man who had no real power. Judas’ very zealotry made it impossible for him to see beyond his own petty, temporal expectations. Even though he believed fervently that Jesus was the Messiah, Judas also thought this Messiah was something of a rube who did not know how to kick off a revolution properly. So he substituted his own intentions for those of Jesus, intending to force the Master’s hand to behave as Judas wanted him to.
How often, when we pray, is it an effort to bind God to our will rather than an effort to more fully know and submit to His will? This is not a caution against invocatory prayer: I often pray in such a manner myself. But when I do, I always end the prayer by saying, “I thank you for hearing my prayer, Lord. Thy will be done.” That is in recognition that I do not know what is best, but do know that God does – and humbly trust that He will do what is best, regardless of my deficiencies and misunderstandings.
It has always annoyed me that the main reason many people want to hear prophecy is so that, by getting some “inside information,” they can kick God to the curb and make their own plan. When I was at the height of public controversy I spoke of the “Storm” that was coming. While approving prudent preparations, I warned people against making huge, elaborate preparations because they were a vain, pitiful effort to outwit God. Yet some people spent more than they could afford on such things and then, when the storm was delayed, blamed me for their improvidence. Why do so many put so much stock in what God is purportedly saying through mystics with so little concern about what His plan is? It is a vanity – and a very dangerous one.
We all want to make a plan. God has a plan. It is not a human plan. If you follow even approved prophecy with the intent of devising your own plan without reference to God’s intent or His plan, you commit the sin of Judas. It is not an effort to draw closer to God, but an effort to outwit Him. It leads to despair and a potter’s field.
I take solace in the last line of my favorite Psalm, the 27th. It is wise counsel for all on how to walk with the Lord, rather than restlessly trying to get ahead of Him.
“Wait on the Lord: be of good courage, and he shall strengthen thine heart: wait, I say, on the Lord.”
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John Daniel Davidson maintains that we cannot maintain the blessings of liberty and prosperity a Christian ethos bestows while abandoning the faith. Nor can we avoid the depredations of slavery and tyranny paganism always brings while embracing a pagan ethos. His new book, Pagan America: The Decline of Christianity and the Dark Age to Come, goes into detail far beyond the scope of his marvelous essay in The Federalist on the subject.
I disagree with him on one point. Though things will get far worse if we do not recover our Christian moorings, the new dark ages have already begun. But fear not. God has a plan. The question is, will you seek to discern and submit to God’s plan or will you waste yourself in a vain effort to rally God to your plan?
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Whenever I quote the Psalms or, for that matter, most wisdom literature from Scripture I use the King James translation. It is unsurpassed in the power of its poetic language.
After having read an abundance of different translations of the Bible, I came to a greater appreciation for the accomplishment of the translators King James set to work in the very early 1600’s. Anyone who knows more than one language knows that the toughest thing to translate is poetry. Usually, you either keep the literal sense of the work while mutilating the poetry or keep the poetry while garbling the literal sense. Amazingly, the King James translation does honor to both without doing violence to either.
For a long time I joked that the only thing I had against the King James translation was the books it omitted from the canon in order to be a Protestant work. Then, while going through San Antonio during my pilgrimage, I discovered that the central San Antonio library has a genuine first edition King James Bible on display. I had to see it. To my astonishment, behind the glass case, the Bible was open to the Book of Tobit – one of the seven Old Testament books Protestants eliminated from their canon. The original King James translation DID include all the books, though it grouped the seven books edited out to a section called the “Apocrypha.”
I asked one of the librarians how long that original King James Bible was on loan to San Antonio. He told me that it was not on loan, but belonged to the library. I asked if he knew how much it cost them, for it is a rare edition, indeed. He replied, with a grin, that it cost nothing. The man said that they found it during an expansion of the library. When busting out the wall to an old, unused room, there it was. They submitted it for authentication, cleaned up the dust and grime that had accumulated on it, and have it on permanent display. But at that time in 2011, they still had no clue how it got there or was originally acquired.
I guess my primary objection to the KJV now is that the original, at least, did not maintain all the books in their proper, canonical order. But they are all there in the original, even if the KJV you can buy at a store does not have them any longer.
If communication goes out for any length of time, meet outside your local Church at 9 a.m. on Saturday mornings. Tell friends at Church now in case you can’t then. CORAC teams will be out looking for people to gather in and work with.
Find me on Twitter at @JohnstonPilgrim
The Corps of Renewal and Charity (CORAC)
18208 Preston Rd., Ste. D9-552
Dallas, Texas 75252
A Sign of Hope 
Wow, Charlie. Such masterful insight from your contemplation! And here it is again: Beware of vanity and hubris. More than a few Biblical characters have taught us the wretchedness we bring about when we attempt to help God by altering His Plan in any way. Thank you for highlighting that last line of Psalm 27 which you have, so rightly and with care, presented to us from time to time.
As we enter this Triduum and Eastertide, I’m going to pray anew: “Show me my blind spots which interfere with Your Will, O Lord.” Better to be working on these things now than waiting to have them burned out of us because we missed God’s moments of nudging us and basically refused to cooperate with His grace. But oh what a beautiful sight it is when we’re allowed to witness the humility of someone who admits s/he erred!!
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Oh how often have I tried to convince God that mine is a good suggestion! Still, when it works out His way, I’m as surprised as any…😳 and thankful that His way is really is right.
So thrilled about the KJV in San Antonio! 😍
I am so excited to take part in the Easter Triduum at the Mount Angel Abbey - really excited! We will go to adoration after mass. ❤️🔥
God bless us in all our celebrations, katey in OR✝️🙏🏽💟❤️🔥
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Ha Backyard! Sometimes when I believe Jesus speaks to me, He tells me things that do not sit well with me. On a couple of occasions I even scoffed that “that is not how I would do it.” In each case He responded with a grin, saying only, “I know.” It taught me to listen more and grumble less.
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😄 The only thing He says to me is, “Wait. Listen.” <sigh> I know my impatience can get me into trouble, so I wait…and listen as best I can.
katey in OR✝️🙏🏽💟❤️🔥
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Thank you, Charlie!
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Of all of God’s attributes, His sense of Humor is up there.
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I find the KJV wonderfully stylish and perfect at just the right times, sort of like certain music genres. To everything a season. A 1st edition replete with the Book of Tobit (one of my favorite books), mysteriously squirreled away in some old library wall and discovered at just the right time? That’s the sort of story that puts a grin on my face.
Oh… and thank you for not mentioning the freighter taking out that bridge in Maryland.
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I agree, MP – even though I love the Douai-Reims I think it can be a bit “clunky” at times. As you said, the KJV is musical. For me, Christmas is gorgeously enhanced by the wonderful Service of Lessons and Carols using the KJV for the lessons - King’s College Cambridge broadcast on BBC Radio on Christmas Eve being the gold standard.
This is an excellent book on how the KJV was actually produced:
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Charlie, Thank you for this wisdom. When we recognize all of the misfortunes that abound in life, from personal illnesses, to untimely deaths in our own family, crime run rampant, sex slavery of children, ongoing wars, and threats to world civilization from super massive volcanic explosions or bombardment of rocks from outer space– there is truly very little that individuals or humanity at large can control to manage the present and future.
Life is always hard, so doesn’t that imply that God has not placed us here to manage His affairs, much less our own. Perhaps we ought only humbly to aim to be personally good and decent as Christ told us in His Sermon on the Mount. Day by day to be kind to all with love of God for creating our souls to share in His grand eternal adventures.
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“I thank you for hearing my prayer, Lord. Thy will be done” I love this and am going to add to the end of my prayers. :)
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Charlie I just love that the KJV was opened to the book of Tobias because I have such a strong devotion to St Raphael 🥰🙏👼
Also I love that it’s ok if we didn’t prep to an extremely large degree because I just don’t have the time! For me it’s one day at a time baby! lol 😂
Great piece Charlie! I agree with you about Judas! Why else would he have committed suicide 😬
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Me too, Linda, strong devotion to dear Raphael and his healing balm!
Love you! Wish I could meet you in person! 🙂
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Love your musings, Charlie. I have found over a lifetime of being consecrated to the Blessed Mother, that asking her to mold me and my life really makes me able to give the molding and conforming to Her and the Holy Spirit. That doesn’t mean that it’s all a cake walk! This was all enhanced as I learned of the Divine Will a couple of decades ago, and place myself and loved ones in the Divine Will to be molded by the Lord, especially in all major decisions in our lives, I add in my prayer. I get tears in my eyes when I look back on all Mother Mary has done for me!
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JESUS, I TRUST IN YOU! … PM 😉
https://catholicvote.org/this-is-it/
https://theconservativetreehouse.com/blog/2024/03/28/holy-thursday-7/
https://catholicvote.org/good-friday-st-helena-and-the-history-of-the-veneration-of-the-cross/
https://spiritdaily.org/blog/church/forums-wheres-the-last-supper-chalice
https://stream.org/the-passion-of-the-christ-against-the-great-reset/
https://www.newsmax.com/us/easter-lee-greenwood-trump/2024/03/28/id/1159007/
https://www.wnd.com/2024/03/pro-life-group-holds-event-u-n-kicks-world-forum/
https://pjmedia.com/rick-moran/2024/03/28/looking-for-the-historical-jesus-and-the-real-jesus-n4927739
GOD SAVE THE REPUBLIC AND ALL HERE!!
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Linda,
Not everyone can prep nore needs to.
Jesus told us not to worry about tomorrow and that the trouble’s of the day were sufficient. But He didn’t mean do not plan at all but not to “worry”. Think about how He tested His disciples with the miracle of the loaves and fish. Out away from town with nowhere to buy food Jesus feeds the 5000 to show He is the master of creation and can hold out the “flour and oil” for a year or thousands of fish and loaves in a moments notice, bring water from a traveling rock, hundreds of thousands of quail from the evening sky or manna in the morning.
Sufficient for the day is what He tells us who is Lord of the day and our very lives;
“Wait on the Lord: be of good courage, and he shall strengthen thine heart: wait, I say, on the Lord.”
Thus Jesus, I Trust in You.
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Bishop Sheen has a meditation on Jesus starting with the Last Supper and going through Calvary. In his depiction, he tells of some ideas of Judas’ mindset in tradition and that some believe, like Charlie does, that he hoped that the Messiah’s coming would return rule to Israel. But he states Judas was not some foil but deeply flawed and evil in this hope and a man of evil intent who desired the power and wealth this rule would attain for himself. And not unlike those rich executives and power brokers who jump out of windows when the market crashes because they won’t go without the opulence and power they once possessed or the designs of a future now lost, Judas dispaired of the certain loss of these things and not from the betrayal of innocent blood, that thought having been forced on him by the reality of Jesus’ impending death as his whole world was now crashing down all around him.
Others believe Judas was jealous of John and Peter because Jesus especially loved John and gave Peter the leading role. Owing to the fact Judas was highly educated, he thought he was the obvious choice to be Jesus” point man and began to hate Jesus because he was not so favored and even stopped believing He was the Messiah. He then became highly influenced/possessed by the devil (who had also been jealous because he was not chosen to be the one God became incarnate through “I will not serve”) to destroy Jesus out of pure hate. (John 13:2; “During supper, when the devil had already put it into the heart of Judas Iscariot, Simon’s son, to betray him.” John 13:27 ; “Then after he had taken the morsel, Satan entered into him.”)
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Over the past few years I’ve come to believe that Jesus came to Earth for The Mission to Redeem Us and nothing was going to change the Mission’s end at Golgatha.
The Mission had to unfold like a Play with actors doing their parts and no actors could go off script.
Jesus was not going to be killed by Herod’s agents or done in by robbers on the trip to Egypt. Pilate was not going to save Him and Judas and the rest of The Disciples had their roles to play.
We will not know till the next life how the “actors” were compensated for their “acting”?
Happy Easter 😉
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Eternal Father, I offer you the Body and Blood, Soul and Divinity of Your Dearly Beloved Son, Our Lord, Jesus Christ, in atonement for our sins and those of the whole world.
For the sake of His sorrowful Passion, have mercy on us and on the whole world.
First Day, GOOD FRIDAY:
Today bring to Me ALL MANKIND, ESPECIALLY ALL SINNERS, and immerse them in the ocean of My mercy. In this way you will console Me in the bitter grief into which the loss of souls plunges Me.
https://www.thedivinemercy.org/articles/day-1-divine-mercy-novena
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JESUS, I TRUST IN YOU! .. Good Friday !! 😉
https://catholicexchange.com/grief-and-good-friday/
https://catholicfamilynews.com/blog/2024/03/29/good-friday-the-mystery-of-the-cross/
https://catholicexchange.com/let-the-holy-spirit-reveal-the-mystery-of-the-cross/
https://catholicvote.org/how-to-make-the-best-of-good-friday-even-if-you-have-to-go-to-work/
https://crisismagazine.com/opinion/good-friday-antisemitism-and-the-conversion-of-the-jews
https://crisismagazine.com/opinion/good-friday-reflection
https://theconservativetreehouse.com/blog/2024/03/29/256079/
12 Reasons Jesus’ Trial Was Illegal Part 1/2–Gabriel N. Lischak
http://rcg.org/pillar/0902pp-trjtwi.html
https://rcg.org/pillar/0903pp-trjtwi.html
https://www.catholicleague.org/new-york-weighs-nixing-adultery-law/
https://thedailybs.com/news/
https://www.zerohedge.com/
https://links.glennbeck.com/view/55d278157d0973635efe6258kr83u.1z5o/d9a5757b
https://citizenfreepress.com/
GOD SAVE THE REPUBLIC & ALL HERE!!
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JESUS, I TRUST IN YOU! .. Good Holy Saturday !! 😉
https://catholicfamilynews.com/blog/2024/03/30/holy-saturday-the-victory-of-the-cross/
https://theconservativetreehouse.com/blog/2024/03/30/the-harrowing-of-hell/
https://crisismagazine.com/opinion/a-mother-receives-her-dead-son
https://spiritdaily.org/blog/news/after-142-years-spains-iconic-sagrada-familia-nears-completion
https://stream.org/pope-francis-and-caiaphas-a-tale-of-two-high-priests/
https://www.ncregister.com/news/muslim-conversion-boom
https://www.lifenews.com/2024/03/29/cardinal-says-joe-biden-is-not-a-real-catholic-should-be-excommunicated-for-supporting-abortion/
https://www.lifenews.com/2024/03/29/tucker-carlson-joe-biden-putting-christians-in-prison-for-praying-tells-you-who-hes-working-for/
https://www.foxnews.com/media/religious-themed-designs-banned-white-house-easter-egg-art-contest
https://townhall.com/columnists/bradslager/2024/03/29/in-the-uk-cadbury-ends-up-with-more-than-yolk-on-its-face-after-eliminating-easter-eggs-n2637156
https://wltreport.com/2024/03/27/disgrace-fairfax-county-democrats-mock-christians-choosing-easter/
https://theconservativetreehouse.com/blog/2024/03/29/the-value-of-trump/
https://thedailybs.com/news/
https://www.zerohedge.com/
GOD SAVE THE REPUBLIC & ALL HERE!!
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Which do you all find to be the best study Bible? Any suggestions?
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Hi, Judy ~
Some friends of mine who are following “The Bible in a Year” by Father Mike Schmitz and Jeff Cavins use their recommended study Bible, “The Great Adventure Catholic Bible.” It comes in both hardbound and paperback versions. The color coding of sections corresponds to Father Mike’s podcasts.
Find these things at Ascension Press’s website.
Happy Easter!
Sister Bear
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Charlie, you have told us many times that if we take the next right step with good intentions, even when we are wrong, God will turn our step toward a good outcome in His eyes.
You state above, “It would also explain why, after Jesus told him, “What you are going to do, do quickly” at the Last Supper, Judas departed so eagerly to finish the betrayal.”
I think this supports your interpretation of Judas’s intent. He took the next right step as far as he could see it, and even though it was in effect very much the wrong move, Jesus turned that next right (though wrong) step to His greatest purpose, to wake everyone up over time from that moment of betrayal.
I suspect Jesus taught by explanation and led by example but rarely if ever *told* His apostles and disciples exactly what to do. That way, they always remained true to themselves as people trying their best in unprecedented circumstances and did not become little Jesus robots. That method of “teaching while allowing” made room even for a Judas blinded by his own vision of the future, as so many of us often are, and at the same time did no harm to the relation between Judas and his Teacher.
The good Lord knows how often we copy Judas rather than Jesus. That Jesus allowed Judas to be himself while turning what Judas did to the great good of us all leaves plenty of room for each of us when we do the same thing Judas did and substitute our will for God’s. When you think of it, that allowing is quite a generous act on God’s part. Without that feature in God’s long teaching, none of us would make the grade, while with that feature, all of us have many opportunities to learn our way out of that sin of pride.
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I’ve always served God, mostly as a consultant.
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