The liturgical highlight of my year is upon us: the Offices of Tenebrae in Holy Week.  Go to all three if you possibly, possibly can.

Every year, the Pslams, lessons, lamentations, responsories and Canticles leap off the page with stunning relevance.  He went through everything before us and for us.  Contempt.  Calumny. Kangaroo trials. The ascendancy of the wicked all around Him. And finally, and certainly worst, betrayal.

The Thursday Offices of Tenebrae, terrifyingly, read like a recitation of current events, with Antipope Bergoglio and his coven, to everyone’s horror but no one’s surprise, as Judas and the Temple priests and guards.

Here is the Responsory after the eighth lesson in the Third Nocturn of Matins for Holy Thursday, which hit me especially hard this year:

Could ye not watch one hour with Me, ye that were ready to die for me? Or see ye not Judas, how he sleepeth not, but maketh haste to betray Me to the Jews?  Why sleep ye? Arise and pray, lest ye enter into temptation.

Today’s point to ponder: While the Apostles dozed off, and couldn’t stay awake, JUDAS WAS WIDE AWAKE, AND EXTREMELY ACTIVE, SPEEDILY EXECUTING HIS PLAN TO BETRAY OUR LORD – BECAUSE OUR LORD’S EUCHARISTIC LOVE FOR US, BECAUSE IT IS SUPERNATURAL, EMBARRASSED JUDAS AND HIS PLANS FOR EARTHLY POWER AND POPULARITY.

Read John 6.  It is all right there. There is nothing new under the sun.

Agony. Agony. Agony.
Judas, worst of the traffickers, approached the Lord with a kiss: He like an innocent lamb refused not the kiss of Judas; For a few pence he delivered Christ to the Jews.