Saint or Sinner ?

When Judas, His betrayer, saw that Jesus was condemned, he repented and brought back the thirty pieces of silver to the chief priests and the elders. He said, "I have sinned by betraying innocent blood."

When we think of the Judas the Iscariot, a picture of an evil traitor pops up. Judas is believed by many to be the second most evil person mentioned in the Bible, behind only Satan. As Christians, we hate him, because he handed over our loving Jesus to be crucified. Not only did he betray Jesus, but he sold Him.

What am I ?

As we grow in faith, we grow in love with Jesus. We claim all His promises to us. Gradually, although we will never really admit it, we grow in pride of our own holiness. We tell ourselves and Jesus that we would never betray our Lord the way Judas did. In the minimum humility that we can manage, we convince ourselves that the maximum harm, we can do is a betrayal much like Peter's. We would never seek to sell Jesus as that would be too cruel.

If we break it down, we see that Judas' sins were jealousy, pride, and greed. We surely are not innocent of these deadly faults. We're selling Jesus every day. We don't realise it because of our pride but yes we do sell Jesus by our sins.

The Catholic Church believes strongly in the unfathomable mercy of God. It condemns no person to hell. While many of us are sure Judas Iscariot went straight to hell for what he did, the Church teaches that we really don't know how great God's mercy can be.

In Matthew 27:3-4, we see that Judas does repent. He accepts his sin and comes back and attempts to put things right. Why do we still judge Judas so harshly? Do we swallow our pride and attempt to put things right, where we have wronged? If not, then we need to take a lesson or two from Judas and seek repentance for our own sins.