Room for Repentance
"And while they were eating, he said, 'Amen, I say to you, one of you will betray me.'" (Matthew 26:21)
"And while they were eating, he said, 'Amen, I say to you, one of you will betray me.'" (Matthew 26:21)
Jesus: "Amen, I say to you, one of you will betray me."
The Twelve: "Surely it is not I, Lord?"
In response, Jesus very easily could have pointed a finger and said, "Judas, you are the one!"
But he doesn't. He chooses to keep his betrayer's identity from public knowledge. Why?
St. John Chrysostom (a 4th-century bishop of Constantinople), in his Homily 81 of the Gospel of Matthew, helps us to understand: "This was again to offer time for repentance by keeping his identity concealed. He was willing to allow all the others to be alarmed, just for the sake of redeeming this one."
With the Sacred Triduum fast approaching, have I sufficiently repented for my sins this Lent?
Jesus, I praise you because you offer me even more time for repentance. Amen.
Father Connor Penn is parochial vicar at St. Timothy Catholic Church in Lutz. Ordained in 2020, Fr. Penn briefly studied journalism before entering the seminary. Fr. Penn grew up in Temple Terrace, attending Corpus Christi Catholic School and later Jesuit High School.
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