What does it mean to love? How can one love another person, especially if that person has hurt us or is very hard to love? Why is it hard to forgive others and to live as Christ has taught us?
These three simple questions might seem simple, but they are not simple at all! We can know or find the answer on the intellectual and doctrinal levels. However, when it comes to applying them in real, personal, and daily life interaction and living of the faith, the choices to love become REALLY HARD because they require us to choose to love, trust, and give ourselves, especially when the people and situations become hard to embrace.
Many of the people, when asked, will answer that they believe in God or call themselves Christians. Nonetheless, when it actually comes to the real life of faith and discipleship, very few actually understand, willingly, or personally desire to choose what our Teacher, Lord, Savior, and Redeemer taught us through His very life example. We find within our very own selves a personal struggle to choose to love. Today, I would like to focus on the person of Judas Iscariot and how he failed to choose to love and trust in Christ Jesus, hence ultimately gave in to his own despair and took his own life out of guilt and shame.
At the beginning of Holy Week, the Gospel readings highlight the attitude and person of Judas in comparison to other biblical figures, ranging from Sts. Mary of Bethany to Peter, even the Lord Himself. The readings highlight generosity and repentance in light of pettiness and hopelessness. They allow us to see that Judas blinded himself by the things of this world, not being able to be generous with others, trust in the Lord, and receive forgiveness because He was too enveloped by his own self.
First, generosity. Mary generously used a liter of costly and aromatic nard oil to anoint the Lord’s feet. She dried them, too, with her hard, thus showing a sign of humility and generosity that Judas did not have. If you have ever smelled pure nard oil before, you know that it only takes a little to go a very long way; hence, to use a liter of precious nard really meant that Mary did not count the cost in humbling herself to love the Lord.
Judas ridiculed her for wasting money that could be used for the poor. Nonetheless, the Gospel of St. John tells us clearly that he said that, not because he really cared for the poor, but because he was a thief. Judas worried about earthly matters, hence letting his senses, perspectives, and outlooks be occupied by them instead of fixing his eyes, heart, and soul on the Lord. I have seen this in my own life, too, where I have seen so-called religious people who ridicule other people for not being generous or giving enough to their particular campaign, agenda, want, ideology, or liking, but they never lift a finger to really serve others. This happens in the secular world, too, where people attack the Church for not doing enough or should have done this or that better; nonetheless, they themselves have done little to nothing to really serve those who are outside of their comfort zone. People like to ridicule others, but it is hard to be generous and genuine in giving our all to Him who loves us.
When we serve, do we still count the cost and look at how other people are not living up to our standards? Sadly, but true, I will admit that I had and continue to struggle with this in the past and at times, too. It is hard to carry the burdens and have to overcompensate when others are not carrying the weight. It is harder to not look at how other people that we think do not meet our standards and somehow become angry, resentful, or negatively respond to them. As a priest, I have to sit in so many meetings trying to encourage people to go out of their comfort zone in order to serve the Lord genuinely, as well as to stop the faithful from putting the blame on others. We have the tendency to sit on our thrones and become armchair philosophers, thinking, wishing, and wanting things done our way, but too few really want to humbly serve and give themselves without cost, recognition, or worldly goods. We do have two choices: 1) to sit, moan, and groan, blame, get frustrated, and point fingers at others, or 2) we can choose to embrace the creative tensions, imperfections, hardships, and struggles in life and find God’s will and presence there.
Even when we fail… which we will, to varying degrees with the different times and seasons of our lives… may we learn to be humble in repenting and asking the Lord for His forgiveness instead of simply letting go of all hope and ignoring the call to hope and conversion. Judas lived in his own little world and its typical, humanistic, and vain values. He was never able to genuinely grow spiritually as Christ’s own disciples. He chose to let go of everything when he was overwhelmed by the shame and guilt of the betrayal, and he took his own life. He was never able to see beyond the apparent and immediate.
On the other hand, we do see Peter, too, who was all passionate about following the Lord, but when he was confronted by others, he gave in to his own fears and rejected the One who loved him. He was so ashamed of the acts that he ran away and hid himself. Even though the Gospels did not give us many details of what happened in between the time of Judas‘s and Peter’s betrayals and denials, we can surely conclude that Peter did not give in to the same hopeless despair that Judas had. Some writers seem to think that if Judas had not been rejected by the chief priests and leaders at the time when he tried to return to the prize, he would have taken his own life. Perhaps we will never know what went through the two men’s minds after the ultimate acts of rejection and betrayal, but we do know the objective endings.
Peter hid himself. He went back to his former profession and lifestyle as a fisherman. He chose to hide and bear the shame and guilt, perhaps out of fear, too, from those who might know him as a disciple of Christ Jesus. Nonetheless, he did not give up and give in to the ultimate decision of despair like Judas. He held on, and that gave him the opportunity to reaffirm his love for the Lord after the resurrection. Thus, in His infinite mercy and compassion, the resurrected Christ asked Peter three times to affirm his love. My brothers and sisters, I, too, can relate to that scene a lot.
Like Peter, I love the Lord, and I am passionate about my faith. However, I have also failed to love Him with all my being. I am a human being, and I still struggle to love Him in my fellow neighbors. I still fall short in truly embracing His will for me at times. I lack patience and trust when things do not go right. I still worry whether I am doing enough, if I am doing the right thing, or what other people think of me as a priest, when it seems like what I am doing is not bringing people back to the faith as I would have liked. In all of my struggles, I have to learn — over and over again — what it means to love and trust in the Lord, even when I have failed at times. It is humbling to recognize that I am no better than many people, but I try to be humble in returning and choose loving Him in small ways.
At the end of the day, I am not called to be successful or appreciated by others in the worldly, humanistic, or egocentric sense. I am called to be faithful, generous, genuine, and humble in following Him. I do hope and pray that you may be encouraged, too. It makes me sad to see so many people who do not believe that their sins can be forgiven and choose to stray away from the faith because of what they have done. They had let their guilt and shame drive them away from the Lord. They lack the humility and courage to return and make things right again. Please let me be the first to admit that it is not always easy to seek conversion, but it is not totally dependent on us because we cannot do much without His loving grace! We are where we are today because He never abandoned us. He sought us out when we were hiding or running away from Him. He forgave us even when we thought we were unforgivable and loved us when we thought we were unlovable. Therefore, let us do our best to be generous, humble, and persevere in loving Him without counting the costs or humanistic measures!
I Thirst (John 19:28) with Father Khoi 