Tenebrae -Of Shadows in Altgeld Gardens: Good Intentions, Sin Guilt and Poor Old Judas.

Today is Spy Wednesday; the day Judas Iscariot took coin from Caiaphas and the gents of Sanhedrin in order to betray Jesus.

Money exchanged hands.

It was also the day that, while Judas was ensuring that no kid would be baptized with his cognomen, a woman from Bethany anointed Jesus with oil.

An expensive gift was given.

Spy Wednesday is also known as the Tenebrae, the Time of Shadows, when the liturgical year goes dark, until Easter. It signals the beginning of the Passion - Jesus conducts the first Mass on Thursday, followed by the agony in the Garden, the disciples beat it, Peter denies knowing Jesus, the Temple guards arrest Jesus, take Him to Caiaphas and Caiaphas hands Jesus over to the civil authorities. On Friday, Jesus is condemned by the secular government, tortured and crucified.

Money and gifts are signs of intentions.  One is awful and one is sweet.

Most of my greatest sins were rooted in what I thought were good intentions. I lacked the Wisdom to know the difference between evil and genuine sweetness.

Some of my best moments as a human being were rooted genuine sweetness.  In 1998, just after my wife passed away, I was heading home to Griffith, Indiana, where a local woman watched my three kids.  I was and remain a train wreck of complicated grief and self-pity.  I picked up a mother and her young daughter who were standing in the south-east bound emergency lanes of the Bishop Ford Expressway at 115th Street, near the OTB. She had been standing there with the little girl for about a half hour and needed to get home to Altgeld Gardens.  I asked her why she was on the Ford, when the Gardens were to the east and told to mind my own damn business. The little girl about six or seven cried up a storm.   It was snowing like a son of a gun.  The woman had blown her week's money at the Illinois Gaming Board Approved entertainment outlet.

I gave the woman a twenty spot and drove the two of them into the Gardens.  I felt pretty good.

The next night I went to Trump Casino, played Caribbean Stud and lost two weeks pay.  Not my first or last rodeo that one. I am one degenerate gambler - two recoveries and waiting for next fall from grace.

Judas got nothing on me, but despair.

We all slip and fall. Peter denies Jesus three times before the rooster does the two count; James and beloved John, as well as the balance of the Disciples went into the shadows, as well.  Pilate washed his hands.  The good people, after considerable polling showed that Barabbas was a sweetheart, shouted for Jesus' Crucifixion.  The Men of the Cohort gambled "responsibly" for Jesus' clothes. Yet, we all can ask for forgiveness.

Money is not a gift.

That's my lesson out of the shadow. Time for this sinner to hit the Confessional box.  Reconciliation is renewal - you can't have a Happy Easter, or a solid Passover, without it.  

Spy Wednesday - Judas, Gets His Close-up.

Oh-oh-oh-ohoo
I'm in love with Juda-as, Juda-as

Oh-oh-oh-ohoo
I'm in love with Juda-as, Juda-as

Judas Juda-a-a, Judas Juda-a-a, Judas Juda-a-a, Judas GaGa
Judas Juda-a-a, Judas Juda-a-a, Judas Juda-a-a, Judas GaGa

[Lady Gaga - Verse 1]
When he comes to me, I am ready
I'll wash his feet with my hair if he needs
Forgive him when his tongue lies through his brain
Even after three times, he betrays me

Lady Gaga's Judas

I been to three County Fairs and eight hog-call contests, but Lady Gaga still amazes me. She's the twist that wears meat and sings. Back in the day there was Johnny Ray, Tiny Tim, Nervous Norvis, and other goofballs who got attention and cut some records.

I am totally unsophisticated where icons are concerned. Judas as a sexually ambiguous object of affection? Hey, Lady, whatever floats your pork chop. You got our attention; now what? . . . where was I?

Oh, yeah, Judas.

Jesus of Nazareth came from the Tribe of Judah - the first Judah, I think, sold his brother Joseph into slavery for some silver. Out of the loins, I love that OT expression, of Judah came Old King David and then the House and Family of David(see Genesis 37-38, and also Psalm 68:2-29 and Acts 1:13-20).


The betrayed and the betrayers are family and ain't that the way. It seems that at some point in our lives we play Judas at some level. We disappoint our loved ones more than we actually betray them. Some of us fall short of our duties and some of us believe that we are crucified by others. Get off the Cross!

The trick is to recognize that we all screw up, fall short, disappoint and then try and actually do something about it. If we get active, we avoid despair. Despair is as bad as it gets. Today is Spy Wednesday to us Fish Eaters. Today is Judas' big moment in the liturgical year. He rats out his cousin for silver and then hangs himself in despair.

A pal of mine sent me a link to a great site called FishEaters.com. There is a great treatment of Judas especially the Dante Inferno Canto XXXIV that presents the torment of betrayers and Judas in Particular. He is being devoured eternally by a three-headed bat.

Out of six eyes he wept and his three chins
dripped tears and drooled blood-red saliva.
With his teeth, just like a hackle
pounding flax, he champed a sinner
in each mouth, tormenting three at once.
For the one in front the gnawing was a trifle
to the clawing, for from time to time
his back was left with not a shred of skin.
'That soul up there who bears the greatest pain,'
said the master, 'is Judas Iscariot, who has
his head within and outside flails his legs.
'As for the other two, whose heads are dangling down,
Brutus is hanging from the swarthy snout --
see how he writhes and utters not a word! --
'and from the other, Cassius, so large of limb.
But night is rising in the sky. It is time
for us to leave, for we have seen it all.'

Dude! Awesome! Three-headed Bat! Had poor old drug-addled pater familias Ozzie Ozbourne paid attention in class back in the early sixties, he might have preempted Lady Gaga with whole Judas Bat shtick! Bloody 'ell!

Despair is the tree-headed bat. Christ gave us Hope. Hope gets us out of bed and in the game.

Spy Wednesday - Judas 'The Whistleblower' Drops a Dime on His Boss

Judas carried the purse. He then sold out the guy who had trusted him with the gelt to the Boys at the Temple for 30 pieces of silver.

Not many little Judases in my neighborhood or immediate circle.

In fact, in my very un- PC and close-knit ethnic and tribal network, being a rat and a dime-dropper makes a person lower than whale-poop.

A columnist for whom I have no regard whatsoever tells all and sundry of his great worship and study of Dante's Divine Comedy, in much the same way as the fatuous name-dropping poser Studs Terkel carried around James T. Farrell's Studs Lonigan Trilogy. This goof is a dedicated Catholic-baiter and recently tried to give Cardinal George media discomfort with his flabby understanding of my Faith and my coreligionists - the very same people he recently smeared as Nazi-thugs in a very self-indulgent and stupid column.

I really need to speak from the heart.

Anyway. Judas was a louse. He betrayed the Son of God to all of us Catholics, many of us Christians and even the Jews for Jesus. To everyone else in this Global Village - Judas betrayed a man who treated him with respect, kindness, trust and affection.

Judas is the founder of the Feast of Spy Wednesday - a great name that -in which we Catholics remember that without betrayal Redemption could not have happened.

Here is my Cardinal - Francis Cardinal George on Judas - who went out after betraying Christ and committed the Dutch Act - huge sin. The sin of Despair. Louses can be forgiven. By Christ/God and Holy Persons like Cardinal George. I am just too close-knit and ethnic. Cardinal George is Christlike:

Wednesday of Holy Week brings us face to face with Judas Iscariot, who engineered Jesus’ death by betraying him to his enemies. In recent years, there have been a few attempts to “rehabilitate” Judas, explain away his apparently evil intentions and paint him as someone who really only wanted to force Jesus to show his power in extreme danger.

It seems to me that efforts like that say a lot more about us than about Judas. We love victims of previous era’s prejudices because accepting them confirms how enlightened we are. Even Judas, whom the poet Dante put in the lowest pit of hell, becomes a foil for our sense of superiority.

Judas kissed Jesus, the Gospel tells us. Did Jesus forgive his betrayer? Jesus died praying that his Father would forgive his enemies, and that would include Judas. We don’t know Judas’ eternal fate, but we do know that forgiving your enemies means you can’t feel superior to them.

I like to read the Psalms because they are filled with threats against the Psalmist’s enemies, and at times, I would like to see my enemies destroyed. But our greatest enemies are our own sins. It’s hard to keep a sense of enlightened superiority when examining our sins. They put us in Judas’ league. Rehabilitation, however, isn’t a matter of finding excuses; spiritual rehabilitation follows from confessing one’s sins and accepting forgiveness with humble gratitude.