Readings: Isaiah 49:1–6; Psalm 71:1–4a, 5a–6b, 15, 17; John 13:21–33, 36–38
Trust means that you confide in someone. Toward the beginning of the Last Supper (which we’ll commemorate liturgically on Thursday evening) Judas’ lack of trust in Our Lord has become complete. Appearance and reality snap into focus: Jesus offers a morsel to Judas as a sign of friendship, but also knows it will be the sign to Peter and John of the friend who would betray him. Judas accepts the morsel while his heart rejects Jesus definitively: to the observer it seems two friends have just exchanged gestures of trust, when really it is a case of one friend extending one last gesture to another before a separation becomes complete.
If Judas had any doubt about whether Jesus really knew his heart, Jesus’ words to him were crystal clear in a language they both understood. Friends sometimes in a social setting speak in subtle hints and with apparently harmless phrases that communicate something only they know. Jesus shows to Judas in this moment that he knows him very well. When Judas chooses to go out into the darkness, literally and figuratively, Jesus begins to confide even more in those who remain, because he knows his time is short and he wants to acknowledge their trust in him.
Jesus trusts me completely. Do I confide in him? Trust and confidence are something that grow over time or wither. On Tuesday of Holy Week let’s confide in Our Lord knowing that his trust in us is limitless. He knows us better than we know our very selves, and, like a good friend, wants to help us see the things in our lives to which we may be blind.