Daily reflections through Holy Week
By ✠Jerome OSJV, Primus of the Old Roman Apostolate
Spy Wednesday – The Price of Betrayal, the Silence of the Redeemer
The Church, ever the wise and sorrowing mother, arrives this day at the threshold of unspeakable treachery. It is Wednesday in the Great and Holy Week, a day whose ancient name in the Christian West—Spy Wednesday—still echoes with the hiss of betrayal. It is today, the sacred liturgy reminds us, that Judas Iscariot became a traitor, not by compulsion, not by sudden impulse, but by a will that had already turned away from the Light and had made a pact with the shadows.
He, who once walked among the Twelve, who ate of the multiplied loaves, who saw the dead raised and demons cast out, who received the morsel from Christ’s own hand at table—he is the one who sells the Lord for silver. And yet, the mystery that chills the heart is not only the betrayal, but the setting of it: at table, in intimacy, beneath the same roof where Christ dwelt in love. The treason is not from a stranger, but from a friend. “My friend, wherefore art thou come?”—the gentle rebuke in Gethsemane cuts more deeply than any sword.
The Mass of this day, in the venerable rite of the Roman Church, offers no dramatized retelling, no explanatory commentary. It simply places before us the weight of Scripture, the tension of prophecy, and the voice of the suffering Christ rising in the psalms. The Epistle, taken from the prophet Isaias, does not describe a man broken by violence, but a divine figure clothed in garments red from the winepress—garments stained not by the blood of others, but by His own, for He has chosen to tread the winepress alone. The Fathers saw in this figure none other than Our Lord Jesus Christ, striding alone into the fury of His Passion, His victory hidden beneath bruises, His strength expressed in silence.
Then comes the Passion according to St. Luke: tender, terrible, majestic. It opens with Judas—the same Judas—communing with the priests of the temple, not in prayer, but in commerce. He sells the Light of the world for a sum worthy of a field of blood. From this moment forward, the Gospel unfolds with a quiet gravity that defies commentary. The sleeping disciples, the agony in the garden, the unjust arrest, the mocking and spitting, the denial of Peter—all is told without embellishment, as though the Evangelist, stunned by the reality of the mystery, simply sets it down as it happened.
And what does the Church place on our lips as the priest offers the unbloody Sacrifice? Not a psalm of vengeance, but a psalm of afflicted supplication. From Psalm 101—“Domine, exaudi orationem meam, et clamor meus ad te veniat.” “O Lord, hear my prayer, and let my cry come unto Thee.” This is the prayer of Christ and His Church, not in triumph, but in abandonment. The One who will soon hang upon the Cross does not raise His voice in protest, but in prayer. He does not curse His enemies; He cries to the Father.
And what of Judas? What shall we say of him? He is not a curiosity, a villain from the margins of the Gospel. He is a warning. He is the parable of the Christian who persists in sin, who walks with Christ externally but harbors rebellion within. He is the scandal of sacrilegious Communion. He is the one who receives the Body of the Lord while his mind calculates betrayal. He is every soul that clings to silver rather than surrender. And his final act is not his worst—his worst act is not his betrayal, but his despair.
For Judas might have been saved. He might have run to Calvary, as Peter ran to the tomb. He might have wept, as Peter wept. But he did not believe in mercy. That was his final fall.
Today, we are placed in the company of both men. Peter denies; Judas betrays. But only one returns. Only one is healed. The liturgy does not ask us to scorn Judas. It asks us to examine our own hearts: to ask where we have compromised, where we have clung to resentment, where we have sold Christ in little ways.
And it asks us to return. Now. Before the kiss is given. Before the mob comes. Before the rooster crows.
For we are still in the sanctuary of time. We still walk in the acceptable hour, the day of grace. “Inclina aurem tuam ad me, Domine”—“Incline Thy ear to me, O Lord”—the psalmist cries. And so must we.
Spy Wednesday is not yet Good Friday. It is the final warning, the last call of mercy before the Passion overtakes us. Let us meet it not with silver in our hands, but with tears in our eyes. Let us watch with Christ, before we are found sleeping. Let us pray with Him, before we deny Him. Let us love Him now—while we still can.
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