Learning from Judas

In the chapel where I currently live, we have a large tapestry that sits at the back behind the altar.  I have a bit of a love/hate relationship with it now, partly because it's dark and dingy a lot of the time thanks to the candles, but it has in the past given me some good things to think about.
It's a beautiful depiction of the last supper, with Jesus in the centre and his disciples around him. In the back corner, however, is Judas, who stands out a little as being the only character in the tapestry without a halo, but what struck me the first time I saw it was the look of longing in his eyes.  Recently, I was looking through some of my old prayer journals, and came across this reflection, which I thought I'd share.

To me it seems to be a look of longing and sadness.  It's as though he's turned away and can't turn back.  He wants to be a part of Jesus' inner circle again, but he doesn't know how. He has hardened his heart and can't bring himself to unburden it again.  He had to play his part for Jesus' great sacrifice to happen, but he couldn't come back afterwards.  He is lost and lonely.
What brought him to that dark place?
Was he ignored too often by the other apostles?  They were all men, all just human.
Or did he close himself off?  Did he refuse to see when the hand of friendship was extended to him?  Did he rebuff inclusion, preferring to go his own way?
He is stood in the corner, looking longingly at the others in the scene.  Wanting desperately to be accepted, even as he clutches a bag full of his 30 pieces of silver.  His betrayers pay.
But is he there because others pushed him there, or because he pushed himself there?

It's so easy to see Judas as being the bad guy, the betrayer, the one who handed Jesus over for death.  But how often do we think about how he ended up there?

Here's some food for thought...
Judas' big mistake was not betraying Jesus.  His mistake was not turning back to Jesus once he realised the mistake he'd made, and that is something that is all too easy to relate to.

More than Conquers?

Apologies for the hiatus, turns out getting and starting new jobs can be quite time consuming.  The final post about World Youth Day is on its way, but in the mean time, this is something else I got up to over the summer... This post was originally written for the Westminster Youth Ministry blog.  Go check them out, there's some fantastic stuff on there!

Since I ended this post with an encouragement to attend Youth2000’s Walsingham retreat, I thought I’d better write up a post about it.  This retreat is always a highlight of my year, and this one was no different.  The theme this year was Conquerors.

After arriving and getting all the usual bits and pieces out of the way – trying to find a vaguely flat bit of ground to set up the tent, realising I’d forgotten a rollmat so was going to have to sleep flat on the ground – rookie mistake for my 4^th time attending, registering, saying hello to old friends… we hit the ground running with Mass.  The homily given by Fr Christopher Joseph CFR really set the tone for the rest of the retreat.

To help you understand the importance of his homily, I have to explain something that some of you may find slightly shocking… Walsingham has very little signal.  If you’re lucky you might find a couple of spots where you can send a text or make a quick call, but internet?  Pretty much nowhere to be found.  I know! 5 days with no social media…

Okay, so you have the picture?  No facebook, no whatsapp, no Instagram, no twitter, no snapchat… but you know what?  It’s actually incredibly freeing.  Without being able to check my phone every 5 minutes to see if people far away were trying to contact me, I found myself being far more present to those who physically surrounded me.  And this is the point that was being made by Fr Christopher.  Our love for social media comes from our desire to be connected to everyone, but the real way that this can happen is not through faceappstagram, but through Jesus.  The Social Network of Christ is his body.  It’s us.  Linking back to the theme of the retreat, he challenged us to make sure we were conquering social media, and not the other way around.  Social media can be a fantastic way to evangelise, but we need to make sure we are not being controlled by it.

So, how to spend 5 days with no phone? Well, one of the great beauties of Youth2000 is that there’s always plenty to do – I was so busy attending talks and workshops, hanging out with old friends and making new ones that I didn’t even manage to find time for a nap this year!

Something that I really really love about Youth 2000 is how it's completely centred around the Blessed Sacrament - around Jesus.  From the end of the opening Mass to just before closing Mass, there is perpetual adoration.  Jesus is out, physically present for the whole weekend.  The talks are given with Him in the room, the praise and worship takes place around Him.  If you wake up at, say, 3am, you can go and sit with Him.  I didn’t manage to take advantage of this enough this year, but knowing that he was so physically close all the time was a great blessing.

If you missed out, it’s okay.  Fr Stephen Wang reminded us that nothing we receive on retreats like this is any different to anything we receive back home.  The point is to gain a greater appreciation for what we have when we go back home.  Whilst you may not be surrounded by priest, making it easy to find one for confession, they’re still there in your home parish.  All you have to do is ask (or turn up at the preadvertised times).  The Eucharist you receive in Mass in Walsingham, or in a field in Poland is the same as the one you receive at home. It’s the same Jesus present in the Blessed Sacrament, whether you’re adoring him in a circus tent in Walsingham, in Westminster Cathedral, or in your local church.  The rosary is the same great weapon of prayer no matter where you say it.

In a later homily, Fr Stephen challenged those present to love your church, be proud of your faith and be prepared to stand up for them both, as well as to “Love the Catholic faith not only for what it has meant for us, but also for what it can mean for others.”

So use your social network following to evangelise.  If you love Jesus, let people know. If you go to a fantastic talk, share it.  We’re all very good at letting our friends on facebook know when we’ve had a delicious meal at a new restaurant, so why not share when we hear a fantastic homily during Mass?  You’d announce it if you were going to a music festival, so why not let everyone know that you’ll be in Sheffield from the 28^th – 30^th October for the next Youth2000 retreat

Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to go.  I’ve just had another friend request pop up on facebook from someone I met in Walsingham…

A Week in Łódź (this title works better if you pronounce it Woodge) (World Youth Day Part II)

One day I will get better at posting on here more regularly.  Today is not that day...
I've been slightly distracted by getting back into the swing of work, and then running off again to spend more time in a field with Jesus (Youth2000 retreat in Walsingham.  Another post will be coming on that later...)

So anyway... back to Poland.  We spent the first week in a lovely little city called Łódź, which has a fascinating history. St. Faustina grew up near Łódź and moved there when she was 16.  3 years later she saw a vision of a suffering Jesus, who instructed her to go to Warsaw to join a convent.  St Maximilian Kolbe was another nearby resident.  On the more secular side of history, Łódź had the largest and longest lasting Jewish ghetto in Nazi occupied Europe.

We were there to take part in Paradise in the City.  A festival organised by the Chemin Neuf community.  Whilst nothing compared to Krakow the following week, there were attendees from 79 countries, and over 5000 people.  For pilgrims who hadn't been to a world youth day before, it was a nice little opening to how hectic Krakow might be.

(photo from WYM facebook page)

The programme was pretty busy, ranging from talks and workshops to praise and worship concerts and adoration.  One thing I particularly enjoyed was how the length of adoration increased throughout the week, presumably as people became more accustomed to sitting in silence with the Lord. Talks were given by a wide variety of people ranging from the Archbishop of Canterbury to a Catholic sexologist. Although I didn't attend the former's talk, I've been assured it was excellent, whilst the latter gave a fascinating talk reminding us that the Church wants body, heart and soul to be in one accord, and that we need to remember to always see each other as people and not as things or labels or categories.

Despite the busyness there was still plenty of time for friendship and fun.  Some of the afternoons were for free time, with sports being available for those so inclined.  I am very definitely not a sports person, so instead with a couple of friends, we decided to head up to the ghetto, but on the two occasions we tried, we realised that we wouldn't have time to get up there and back in time for the next event!  So instead we did the obvious thing of going and finding a rather beautiful bar instead...

Given that it was a 20-30 minute walk away from where we were based, that still counts as exercise, right?

During this week we were blessed to have the opportunities such as have Mass in the cathedral in Łódź and a reconciliation service in front of the Blessed Sacrament in the beautiful Church of Our Lady of Victory:

(photo WYM)

Don't bother trying to find me in this group photo though, I managed to miss it whilst distracted elsewhere!

Continuing the theme of it being like a mini world youth day, the final event of the week was a huge Mass at a local sports arena.  What would a pilgrimage be without a short walk or two?  With this in mind, and as preparation for the much longer walk ahead of us in a week's time, we headed off for our hour long walk.

(photo WYM)

Having been to a few of these types of things, I'm fairly used to there being huge numbers of priests around now and then.  I was still taken by surprise at just how many priests were there saying Mass!

(photo WYM)

All those people standing  on the floor there?  Priests.  They go further back too, but I don't have a good photo to show just how far back.  We completely filled the huge arena though!

So that's a short summation of what we got up to in Łódź, coming up next, Częstochowa and Krakow!