MARY, OUR MOTHER

SCRIPTURE COMMENTARY #539

"And now I am not in the world, and these are in the world, and I come to thee. Holy Father, keep them in thy name whom thou hast given me: that they may be one, as we also are. While I was with them, I kept them in thy name. Those whom thou gavest me have I kept: and none of them is lost, but the son of perdition: that the scripture may be fulfilled." (John 17:11-12)

CONTINUED RESISTANCE TO GRACE LEADS TO ETERNAL RUIN: When our Lord chose Judas to be an apostle, no doubt he was full of good intentions and worthy of the choice. But by degrees he became the cause of great sorrow to his Divine Master, for his passions gained more and more dominion over him. Jesus bore with him, and repeatedly and solemnly warned him. When, a year before His death, and just after He had promised the Blessed Sacrament, our Lord gave to His apostles the choice whether to leave Him or not, Peter, in the name of the others, confessed his faith in Him as the Son of God, and pledged his allegiance to Him. But Jesus answered: "Have I not chosen you twelve, and one of you is a devil." In these words He alluded to Judas, and distinctly gave it to be understood that he would be unfaithful to him, and a tool of the devil. Judas, however, dissembled and remained with Jesus, hoping to turn his service of Him to his own advantage; and when he quite lost all hopes of an earthly Messiah, and consequent prosperity for himself, he compensated himself for his disappointment by frauds and thefts. Thus he persisted in sin, and abused the patience, gentleness and love of Jesus, by continuing in his evil mode of life, instead of being moved and converted. The unworthy apostle believed that, because his Master was so kind, he could go on sinning with impunity, and he sinned therefore against the goodness and mercy of his Lord. Thus he sank deeper and deeper, until at last he sold his Master, and bartered away his own soul; and when he realized the consequences of his vile treachery, his presumption changed suddenly to despair. God's mercy is, indeed, infinitely great, but meanness and baseness had grown to such dimensions in the heart of the traitor by reason of his long course of deceit and hypocrisy, that he had lost all sense of what is great and noble, and could not form the idea of God's infinite mercy, than which nothing greater or more noble can be imagined. And thus it was that the once loved and chosen apostle of Jesus became a "son of perdition" (John 17:12), and went "to his own place" (Acts 1:25).

[From 'A Practical Commentary on Holy Scripture' by Bishop Knecht, D.D.]

(1899 Douay-Rheims Bible)