Michelle SweeneyThe value of meditating on Judas Iscariot's bowels.
February 23rd 2008 23:31
Sign displayed above the chapel exit doors of a Catholic Church at the end of Mass: “Judas was the first one to leave the Last Supper”.
On the 24th of February each year, the Catholic Church celebrates the feast of St Matthias, the Apostle who was chosen to replace Judas Iscariot.
I’ve always found Judas Iscariot an interesting character, albeit somewhat frightening, from what I’d read of him in the Gospels, and Acts of the Apostles, but I’d never considered making him the subject of a morning meditation. Until I read the life of St Francis Borgia.
Somehow, Our Lord’s words regarding Judas in Chapter 26 of Matthew’s Gospel, ‘it were better for him if that man had not been born’ were not words I wanted to dwell upon in relation to my own soul. The word ‘traitor’ wasn’t much more appealing. Or ‘thief’. Or phrases like, ‘and being hanged, burst asunder in the midst, and all his bowels gushed out.’ I can think of nicer subjects to mediate on. But St Francis Borgia had no qualms about meditating on Judas, and had his reasons.
St Francis Borgia was a Jesuit (member of the Society of Jesus). He was a friend of the Spanish founder, St Ignatius Loyola, and was made General of the Order in 1565. He is often styled, ‘The Second Founder of the Jesuits’.
Like all male Catholic Saints, St Francis Borgia was a man of heroic virtue and a man of prayer. As St Ephrem of Syria says, “Virtues are formed by prayer.” And as St Alphonsus puts it clearly in the conclusion to chapter one (The Necessity and Power of Prayer) in his book ‘The Great Means of Salvation and Perfection’, “He who prays is certainly saved. He who does not pray is certainly damned.”
One of the greatest virtues is humility. It is often styled Our Lady’s favourite virtue, and the Queen of Virtues. As St Francis of Assisi’s companion, Blessed Giles of Assisi says, “No man can attain to the knowledge of God but by humility.” St Bernard of Clairvaux (the Hammer of Heretics) defines humility as ‘a virtue by which a man knowing himself as he truly is, abases himself.’ St Thomas Aquinas states, ‘the virtue of humility consists in keeping oneself within one’s own bounds [limits], not reaching out to things above oneself, but submitting to one’s superior.’
After St Francis Borgia joined the Jesuits, he realised how important (and yet how difficult) it was to attain humility, or obtain the virtue of humility. He discovered what St Louis de Montfort puts so eloquently in his book, ‘True Devotion to Mary’
‘Our soul, being united to our body, has become so carnal that it has been called flesh. ‘All flesh had corrupted its way.’ Pride and blindness of spirit, hardness of heart, weakness and inconstancy of soul, evil inclination, rebellious passions, ailments of the body – these are all we can call our own.
By nature, we are prouder than peacocks, cling to the earth more than toads, more base than goats, more envious than serpents, greedier than pigs, fiercer than tigers, lazier than tortoises, weaker than reed, and more changeable than weather-cocks. We have nothing within us but sin, and deserve only the wrath of God, and the eternity of hell.
Is it any wonder then, that Our Lord laid down the maxim that anyone who aspires to be His follower must deny himself, and hate his very life? He makes it very clear that anyone who loves his life shall lose it, and anyone who hates his life shall save it. Now, Our Lord, Who is Infinite Wisdom, and does not give commandments without a reason, bids us to hate ourselves, only because we so richly deserve to be hated. Nothing is more worthy of love than God Himself, and nothing is more deserving of hatred than self.
"Judas, dost thou betray the Son of Man with a kiss?"
So what role did meditating on Judas Iscariot play in this great Saint’s successful and persevering efforts to obtain humility?
St Francis Borgia one day told the Jesuit novices that in meditating on the actions of Christ, he had for six years always placed himself in spirit at the feet of Judas, but then realised that even Christ Himself had washed the feet of that traitor, so that from thence onwards, he felt unworthy to even approach Judas. (Butler’s Lives of the Saints).
Benedictio Dei Omnipotentis …
Ann Onnamuss.
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Comment by Lilla
From The Home Front
Enviro Warrior
Dream Herald
Esoteric Bookshop
As always a fabulously engrossing post, full of relevance and information. However, I am compelled to comment on this one, that whilst I have no problem with humility in the face of true superiority, for the life of me, I cannot understand how you can aspire to better yourself if you are determined to stay in a state of self loathing. The practice of such is contradictory in the extreme.
To my way of thinking, you must first learn to admire and appreciate the good things you allow yourself to do - like praying often - in order to be able to 'take up' and follow Christ, in the first place, let alone locating 'humilty' itself?
Lilla ...
Comment by Ann 1
Bloganymity
That's a really good point. And something I struggled with for years.
The conclusion I came to (not by myself, but by reading the works of people qualified to write on such matters) was, 'Theological maxims [like the necessity for humility and self-abasement] only make true or perfect sense (in terms of being lived out in a practical or edifying sense) once a person's philosophy [or mental well-being] is sound. I realised that as a human being, I have both a body and soul (or spirit/mind) and if one is sick, the other suffers.
Or, to put the conclusion in other words, the foundation for sound theology is sound philosophy. (As a long-term cart-driver without a horse, I realised a long time ago that so many people put the cart before the horse. And it wasn't just because I had sore shoulders, either. The appeal of being a 'spiritual teacher of others' makes people such as myself neglect such thoughts as 'perhaps I should practice what I preach before I self-appoint myself as a teacher?). Again, it took me years to fully 'grasp' that one. Never seeing a horse helped. (and the cost of shoulder bandages).
Humility is more about my knowledge of myself in relation to God, not comparing myself to other humans, and yet humility has its exterior expression in how we realte to, and act towards our fellow humans.
At the end of the day, this blog is about the things I love. It's a selfish blog. I write it primarly for my own benefit but I like interacting with other bloggers. Basically, I'm not (or no longer) into converting others to my way of thinking or educating 'the ignorant'. I'd rather spend my time converting and instructing myself. That could take a while.
Ann.