Tuesday, April 12 : Saint Augustine

When our Lord, Bread of Life (Jn 6,35), had given bread to that dead man and, in handing him the bread, indicated the one who would betray the living bread, he said to him: “What you have to do, do quickly”. He was not commanding a crime; he was revealing his evil deed to Judas and declaring our good to us. Was it not all the worse for Judas and all the better for us that Christ should be delivered up? For Judas, who is harming himself, acts on our behalf without knowing it. “What you have to do, do quickly.” These are words of a man who stands ready, not of a man who is annoyed; these words say less about the punishment of the betrayer as about the reward of the redeemer, of the one who redeems. For in saying: “What you have to do, do quickly” Christ is seeking to hasten the salvation of believers far more than he is accusing the unfaithful man’s crime. “He was handed over for our transgressions; Christ loved the Church and handed himself over for her” (Rom 4,25; Eph 5,25). This is what caused the apostle Paul say: “He loved me and gave himself up for me” (Ga 2,20). For in fact no one could have handed Christ over if he had not handed over himself… When Judas betrayed him, it was Christ who handed himself over; the former undertook his sale, the latter our purchase. “What you have to do, do quickly”: not so that it might be given over into your power but because it is the will of him who can do all things… “Judas took the morsel and left at once. It was night.” And he who went out was himself night. Then, when night had left, Jesus said: “Now is the Son of Man glorified!” Day unto day hands on the word (cf. Ps 19[18],3), that is to say Christ entrusts it to his disciples so that they might hear and follow him in love… Something similar will take place when the world that Christ has vanquished passes away, Then, when the weeds are no longer mixed up with the wheat, the righteous will shine like the sun in the kingdom of their Father (Mt 13,43).
Roman Catholic Ordinary Calendar – rosary,team