Cardinal's Column 3/28/04

‘On the night he was betrayed ...’

Talking about the Mel Gibson film on the passion of Jesus Christ last week, I was asked why Jesus had to go to his death, why did he have to die to save us? The death of the Lord is so graphically displayed in this film that the question comes naturally to the mind of any kind and loving person: did it have to be this way?

Jesus, himself sinless, took upon himself all the consequences of sin in order to save us from our sinfulness. In the book of Genesis, death is the final consequence of sin, physical death here and spiritual death for all eternity (Gen. 3: 19). God promises fallen humanity a savior and, in the fullness of time, sends his Son, Jesus, who “will save his people from their sins” (Mt. 1: 21). Conquering sin means conquering death, the consequence of sin. The risen Christ, in his first words to his frightened disciples, tells them to be at peace and then gives them authority to forgive sins (Jn. 20: 22-23). If Jesus had not truly died, tasted the results of sin to the very dregs and then conquered death itself, he could not have given the apostles authority to forgive sins. Christ’s death on the cross is a self-sacrifice. He went freely to it, “so that sins may be forgiven” (Eucharistic Prayer III).

At the heart of the Mass, in the words of consecration, we speak of Jesus’ betrayal to death so that sins may be forgiven. Jesus’ self-sacrifice begins with a betrayal; he is handed over to death by a traitor, by Judas, one of the Twelve. Judas sets off a series of handings over of the Lord: from Sanhedrin to Romans, from Pilate to Herod and back again. The ones whom Jesus had chosen betrayed him and fled. Judas betrayed him with a kiss, identifying him to the soldiers in the garden of Gethsemane (Mt. 26: 48-49). Peter, who had so vehemently protested his fidelity, denies both Jesus and his own identity as he swears he does not know the man (Mt. 26: 69-75). But Peter repents, while Judas kills himself. Then and now, there are two possibilities open to sinful Christians, including those whom Jesus has chosen to be his apostles and their successors: repentance or despair.

To repent is to acknowledge a betrayal. In his Spiritual Exercises, St. Ignatius of Loyola compares the person making the exercises to a knight who has become a traitor and who has to appear, humiliated and overcome with shame, before his king. Every deliberate sin is a form of betrayal. The sinner turns from God, escapes from God, into an isolation which puts self and creatures in place of the Creator at the center of one’s life. In running from God, in trying to free himself from God, the sinner falls into the power of creatures and becomes a slave to earthly possessions, to the flesh, to the devil.

Left to our sinful selves, we can be only self-righteous. But the self-righteous die in their sins. Those who are saved, live and die made righteous by Christ’s death and resurrection. St. Paul writes: “Once you were slaves of sin but, thank God, you have given wholehearted obedience to the pattern of teaching to which you were introduced and so, being freed from serving sin, you took uprightness as your master” (Romans 6: 17). With baptism, there has come a radical change of master, a change of sides: from sin to justice, from darkness to light, from disobedience to obedience, from death to life, from Adam to Christ.

We pray these Lenten days for those to be baptized at the Easter Vigil. In the early years of the Church, it seems that those being baptized turned west, toward the setting sun and the place of gathering darkness, and there repudiated Satan and all his works. Then they turned east, toward the place of the rising sun, professed their faith and saluted Jesus Christ as Lord, like soldiers abandoning a tyrant’s army for that of a liberator. The obedience of faith is central to the life of a disciple of Christ, who became Lord in obeying the Father, even unto death on the cross (Good Friday liturgy). To obey Christ is to become like him who obeyed. To disobey Christ is to betray the Lord who gives us life as his disciples.

These Lenten days are given us in order to free us from the slavery of sin, to repent our betrayals, to renew our allegiance to Christ and make reparation for the damage done by our wrongdoing. This process of conversion, which should lead us to the confessional, begins with the acknowledgement that we have betrayed the Lord. Judas could not face his betrayal; Peter did so with enormous anguish of heart. That anguish is ours when we face our own sins; it is ours as well when we face the sins of others in the Church.

Who among us has not reflected long and hard on the betrayal at the heart of the sexual abuse scandal in the Church? Some priests betrayed the trust of the most vulnerable of their parishioners; some bishops betrayed the trust of their office. All of us live with the consequences of these betrayals. The bishops as a group have asked forgiveness of God, but we must live with the consequences of sin, even of forgiven sin. Those betrayed have to find their own way to forgiving in order to be free, but they must be accompanied on this way by the prayers of all. Sin is always social, but so is the holiness which comes with the forgiveness of sin. The Holy Father has prayed that the present scandal will bring us to a “holier priesthood, a holier episcopate, a holier Church.” This is the prayer of one who knows, in faith, that the forgiveness of sin makes us saints.

There are as many forms of betrayal as there are types of sin. Each has to make his or her own examination of conscience. We make this examination with grateful hearts, because Jesus has died for us and for our salvation. We make it with hopeful hearts because, sin overcome, eternal life is now a realistic expectation. In the liturgies of Holy Week, the Lord turns his merciful gaze upon us as he did upon Peter. We gaze upon him who has been bruised for our offenses when we venerate the cross on Good Friday and there acknowledge that we adore Christ and desire to follow him in faithful obedience. At the foot of Christ’s cross, in the company of the Blessed Mother and St. John, my prayers are for you and all the Catholics of the Archdiocese. Please keep me in yours.