Judas

I'm not going to talk about the bogus "gospel"; I have not read it nor do I need to in order to know it's a piece of crap.

This post is about the true Biblical Judas and the purpose he served.

I have never understood Judas. He was one of the apostles, therefore he was called by Christ. And Christ, being God, already knew all about Judas, and still he called him. And Judas came. But what really motivated him?

We know from the Gospels that Judas was a thief; he held the money bag and complained when Jesus' feet was annointed because he, Judas, was stealing and wanted the money for himself if any was to be spent. Therefore he was a con. He was a traitor, but was he really? Maybe he was more of a spy, because in order to be a traitor one has to actually hold the opposing position prior to betraying it. He was never converted. He was a criminal in his own right, was Judas.

Judas was a sinner.

We know that Judas betrayed Jesus Christ in the Garden of Gethsemane with a kiss for only 30 pieces of silver. We know that he later repented, knowing that he had betrayed innocent blood, and he tried to give the money back, but the bloody hands of the Pharisee's refused the rejection of an act which was already completed and signed in blood.

Did Judas sell his soul in order to betray Jesus Christ?

It says in the Gospels that after Judas took the piece of bread which was dipped in the same dish as Jesus, Satan entered him. So was Judas acting under the possession of Satan, or of his own willful accord or both?

Judas repented, though as he realized his sin. He repented and he returned the blood money. He repented.

I can't get past this.

Judas repented.

And then he hung himself. He repented and then killed himself.

We, as Catholics, believe that suicide, the taking of one's own life, which is murder, to be a mortal sin. We also recognize that some who committ suicide do so under the duress of a mental illness, and so the sin may be mitigated. Only God can read the heart.

When I was a teenager, I nearly committed suicide, and that is for another post. I believe that my sin was mortal; I knew what I was doing and I was rejecting God. My Mother, a few years later, also attempted suicide and was subsequently hospitalized as I signed on as her guardian for the purposes of the 72 hour hold when I was only 18. She was mentally ill and had been diagnosed long before. I do not believe she committed mortal sin because she was not thinking clearly....she was not acting by her own hand. But what of Judas? From all accounts, he was not mentally ill and was fully aware of what he had done.

Was it despair? Was his real sin despair? He realized that he had betrayed Jesus Christ unjustly, but did he really know who Jesus Christ was, or did that realization hit him after the kiss upon his cheek?

In Mel Gibson's "The Passion of the Christ", Judas looked over at a decaying ox which was crawling with maggots. I read an account or maybe heard one on Relevant Radio explaining the scene...the camera pans to the the oxen which shows the teeth in the center of the shot. It then pans to Judas, weeping, his teet in the center of the shot. They had to do the scene over and over again, and finally they told the actor, "Pretend that the ox is your soul". The result was the impact we see.

I can't help but feel compassion for Judas because I am a sinner, too. How many times have I betrayed Jesus? How many times have I rejected him in favor of some shiny trinket, or even 30 of them?

Search your souls, people. You are Judas, too. You have been evil, you have betrayed Jesus, and you have sold yourself for all sorts of sins. We all have.

And that's why Jesus had to die. For the maggoty likes of us.

But did Jesus die for Judas?

I do not mean to imply that he was a good guy because he certainly was not. He betrayed Christ.

But I can't get beyond his repentance his and subsequent suicide. What I see here is that he was aware of what he had done and he despaired of reconciliation because he could not turn back the clock. He could not go back and make things right; he could not even apologize. He knew that he had killed the Savior through his actions and he could not even bear to watch because he wore that blood also.

Is that what we are to learn? That Judas sinnned more in his despair than he did in the act of betrayal itself? And when he hung himself for a tree (as Jesus was also hung from a tree), he officially turned away from the mercy of Jesus which could still have been available to him.

Judas could still have been "saved". Can you imagine a Gospel where Judas arived at the foot of the cross and begged for Jesus' mercy? Wouldn't Jesus have absolved him on the spot, begging the Father to forgive for he knew not what he had done?

But Judas did not even explore that possibility. He ran away. He fled, and instead of life and redemption, he chose death. Is that what the Sacred Scripture teaches, and what the Church teaches?

I am asking this in all sincerity as I have never taken a Bible study course. I have never had the opportunity either due to financial concerns or work schedule. I am no theologin and even my religious training at St. Mary's University in Winona was heretical, sad to say.

I ask of those of you who have actual knowledge of the Church's teaching to please comment and reveal how we are to see Judas...or are we only to leave him to the mercy of Jesus. Are we to pray for his soul, or is he considered to be a lost cause? I read somewhere that his is the only soul the Church deems to be in Hell, but is this true? I somehow doubt it because it contradicts the message of Divine Mercy and the very death Jesus died on the cross for all of us.

It's for all of us, not all of us except Judas.

I can't get past the mercy of Jesus...what are we to do about Judas?