Daily reflections through Holy Week
By ✠Jerome OSJV, Primus of the Old Roman Apostolate

Holy Tuesday – The Shadow of Betrayal and the Silence of Christ

The Church, in her venerable and ancient liturgy, does not hasten toward Calvary. She tarries. She lingers. Each day of Holy Week, in the classical Roman Rite, is not merely a chronological step closer to the Cross; it is a mystical unveiling of the soul’s interior drama as it draws near to the abyss of divine love and human frailty. And Holy Tuesday, so often overshadowed by the greater liturgical moments that follow it, possesses a weight and gravity that cannot be ignored.

This day is a mirror. It is not yet the moment of betrayal or crucifixion, but it is the moment in which the soul begins to realize how easily it could fail the test. Today, the Church hands us the Passion according to Saint Mark, not to recite like a school lesson, but to consume as a sacrament of truth. It is the shortest and most stripped-down of the Passion narratives—precise, unembellished, like a blade honed on the edge of divine justice. And because of this, it pierces.

The liturgy gives us no grand entrances, no miracles, no discourses. Instead, it presents us with Judas preparing his betrayal, Peter swearing loyalty he will not keep, the disciples failing to watch, and Christ suffering in silence. The Word made flesh speaks almost nothing in His own defense. He does not argue. He does not explain. He stands before His accusers with the silence of truth.

The Church, in her wisdom, has preserved this Gospel in the very heart of Passiontide, that it might confront us with ourselves. Not with who we imagine ourselves to be, but with who we truly are. We are all in the narrative—somewhere. We are at the Last Supper. We are in the garden. We are standing by the fire with Peter. We are asleep when we should be praying. We are asking, with trembling hope or lurking guilt: “Is it I, Lord?”

That haunting question from the mouth of the Apostles is the spiritual signature of this day. And the answer, if we are honest, is yes. Yes, it is I. I have denied You by my silence. I have betrayed You by my sins. I have fled when I should have stood firm.

But the liturgy does not condemn. It reveals. The Passion of Christ is not placed before us to crush us beneath the weight of our failures, but to lead us, as it led Peter, into that salutary sorrow which produces repentance. The same Peter who swore he would never deny the Lord—he who drew his sword, who followed at a distance—this same Peter falls. And it is not the judgment of Christ that breaks him, but the gaze of Christ: silent, sorrowful, piercing, merciful.

It is in that gaze that the Church invites us to dwell today. The Communion antiphon, taken from Psalm 68, expresses not triumph, but humiliation:

Adversum me exercebantur qui sedebant in porta: et in me psallebant qui bibebant vinum: ego vero orationem meam ad te, Domine: tempus beneplaciti, Deus, in multitudine misericordiae tuae.

“They who sat at the gate spoke against Me; and they who drank wine sang against Me. But I—My prayer was to Thee, O Lord: it is the time of Thy good pleasure, O God, in the multitude of Thy mercy.”

Even here, in the midst of mockery and betrayal, the Messiah prays. He does not curse His enemies. He does not curse His weak friends. He turns instead to the Father. In the day of derision, He chooses intercession.

This is how the Church teaches us to suffer.

Not with outrage. Not with cynicism. Not with bitterness. But with prayer. This is the secret strength of Holy Tuesday: its quiet insistence that the true disciple does not scream when he is misunderstood, nor retaliate when he is wounded. He simply turns his face toward Gethsemane and follows the Lord who goes there alone.

But the day is not only about weakness. It is also about hope. The fall of Peter is not final, because his tears are real. He leaves the courtyard weeping—not to hide in despair, but to begin again. The liturgy does not ask us to be perfect. It asks us to be penitent. Judas despaired, Peter repented. Both sinned, but only one allowed himself to be redeemed.

We stand today between them.

The Passion according to Saint Mark ends with Christ delivered into the hands of men. He does not resist. He does not explain Himself. He is, as Isaiah foretold, the Lamb led to the slaughter, silent before His shearers.

And yet, it is this silence that saves. The Word who was made flesh now saves the world without speaking. His silence is not absence—it is power restrained by love.

We are invited to enter that silence. To make it our own. Not merely by observing the events of Holy Week, but by participating in them—through recollection, through contrition, through sacramental confession and holy reception of the altar’s divine victim.

Holy Tuesday is the hinge of Holy Week. It is the moment when the soul must stop pretending that it can follow Christ from a safe distance. It must draw near or fall away. It must weep or turn away in pride. It must confess, “I am Peter,” and let the tears come.

Let them come.

The Church will be waiting for us at the tomb, when the stone is rolled away.

But today, she stands with us at the fire, where the rooster is about to crow.

And she asks, for the last time before the Passion begins in earnest:

Will you follow?

Or will you sleep?

Practical Devotions for the Day

• Read and meditate on Mark 14 slowly, asking: “Where am I in this story?”
• Make an unhurried examination of conscience. Identify not just sins, but patterns of betrayal: spiritual apathy, moral compromise, avoidance of truth.
• Pray the Litany of the Passion or Psalm 50 (Miserere), offering acts of reparation.
• If possible, go to Confession—to rise like Peter, not fall like Judas.

Lent Conferences 2025

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