Episcopal Ordination and Canonical Possession of Bishop Elias L. Ayuban, Jr. DD CMF as the 2nd Bishop of CubaoBishop Pablo DavidPresident, CBCP [Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines]Cardinal-designateHomilistBY THE BONFIREHomily for the Ordination of Bishop Elias Ayuban3 Dec 2024John 21:15-19Thank you for delegating to me the task of preaching this homily, Cardinal Joe Advincula, upon the request of Bishop Eli. It is a joy to be with you all in this Eucharistic celebration dear sisters and brothers on this solemn occasion of the ordination of our dear Claretian brother Elias Ayuban, Jr to the Episcopal ministry….The stories in the Gospels about the apparitions of the risen Jesus to his disciples have a common pattern - he is restoring them. Remember how two of them had fallen out and broken away already. Those guys were not just routinely traveling to Emmaus; they were running away. And the risen Jesus incognito had to intercept them to reroute their journey back to Jerusalem, to reunite them with the community.There was one of them who was not in speaking terms with the rest. I am of course talking about Thomas; John says in a cryptic way he was “not with them” when Jesus first appeared in the upper room. He had to touch Jesus’ wounds first before his own wounded relationship with his community could be be healed. Mary Magdalene and the other women had to struggle with the sexist attitudes of these androcentric, patriarchal male disciples who wouldn’t trust their testimony just because they were women.The disciples were all actually in a deep state of trauma and grief. They were too bewildered and confused to even understand the instruction of the angels that Jesus was asking them to return to Galilee and meet him there. So they huddled together like scared dogs in Jerusalem licking their wounds. Jesus had to break into that upper room to be able to get them out and liberate them from their collective fear. [Scripture says nothing about Jesus “breaking in”; rather, He passed through the doors, using the power of agility of His glorious body.-PK] …In Japan they have this art of putting together the pieces of a broken ceramic bowl using 24-karat powdered gold mixed with lacquer, as glue. The binding agent is more expensive than the bowl itself. The whole things is done like a religious ritual. The owner of the bowl does it with utmost care. He restores the broken bowl but in a manner that does not hide the cracks. It is precisely the cracks that will turn the broken bowl into a precious piece of art. Isn’t that beautiful?We are all wounded people. Christianity was never meant only for the holy and deserving. The Eucharist is not an exclusive meal for the righteous but a body broken for broken people. That’s why Jesus says, “this is the new covenant in my blood poured out for you and for many so that sins may be forgiven.”Look, the one who received the first morsel of bread was Judas. It was Jesus’ way of transforming a meal of betrayal into a meal of forgiveness. We are all like broken bowls ourselves. But the good news is—there is no brokenness that cannot be healed by the precious blood of the lamb. It is a more precious binding agent than gold. Jesus healed Peter before he could turn him into a minister of healing. What restored Peter was an invitation to make an act of faith: do you love me? One word of love for every word of denial. Only then can we truly start following him and representing him.
In the Philippines, Cardinal-elect David is notorious for his advocacy of “rehabilitating Judas.” He wrote a short essay titled “In Defense of Judas” in 2018 (2016?), the text of which can still be found on Facebook:
In Defense of JudasBy Bishop Ambo DavidSome people forget that Judas was chosen personally by Jesus to be one of the twelve pillars of the Church! (If we can ascribe infallibility to the Pope, why not to the Son of God?) They also forget that Judas eventually repented and in fact attempted to return the money to the Chief Priests before despair pushed him to take his life, according to the passion story of Matthew. When the Gospels say “Satan had entered into Judas”, they are actually being merciful. It amounts to saying that Judas was really not himself at that moment, that he was under the spell of evil when he did his act of betrayal. In fact we shouldn’t forget that at the first Eucharist Jesus broke bread and gave the first morsel to Judas! To say that that was not Eucharistic is to claim that Judas was beyond redemption! It is also to deny the power of God’s mercy. Have we forgotten that the Eucharist was really for him (and for the potential Judases that we all can turn into)? Thus the priest says, to preface the words of consecration at Mass, that it was “on the night he was betrayed” that Jesus took bread and wine and offered them as his own body and blood, in anticipation of his act of self oblation on the cross on Good Fri. The Eucharist is really about Jesus’ conscious option to transform that night of betrayal into a night of forgiveness: “It will be poured out for you and for many FOR THE FORGIVENESS OF SINS.” It was precisely at that moment that Jesus accepted the prospect of becoming the lamb for the new passover, by whose blood sins would be forgiven—Judas’ included.
In a “Homily for Holy Wednesday, 31 March 2021, Mt 26:14-25,” Bishop David explained his position at much greater length:
UNDERSTANDING THE HATRED FOR JUDASI think I may have been misunderstood by some people in that brief reflection which I posted on my FB page five years ago, entitled, “IN DEFENSE OF JUDAS.” I wonder if they read it carefully. I was not defending what Judas did. What he did was most definitely despicable, wicked and depraved. He betrayed Jesus and none of that is justifiable. I also did not say he was merely “being used as a puppet in a play written by God.” Instead, it is the Gospels themselves that say Judas was under the spell of Satan—the real adversary, the real enemy of Jesus.When I was still a little boy, I remember witnessing the gruesome traditional ritual of hanging an effigy of Judas Iscariot on Black Saturday morning. The whole thing was like a medieval public execution. The Judas effigy was stuffed with fireworks inside. In the plain view of the children, they tied a thick rope around the Judas effigy’s neck, hanged him from a branch of a tree right in the Church patio, and as soon as he dropped full weight in mid-air, the explosions began. First to explode were his limbs, and then his arms, and then the torso, until there was only the head left. Of course they saved the loudest explosion for last—the blasting of the head, which usually drew a thunderous applause from the spectators.In some places, the explosion of the head released some candies that were up for grabs from the children among the spectators. After the ritual, the people would go home fully satisfied and saying things like, “That serves Judas right; he betrayed the Lord.”It was that condemnatory attitude that I really wanted to call attention to in my post five years ago. It is an attitude which, I believe, is very unChristian. Condemning the sin of Judas and condemning Judas are two entirely different things. As Christians, we always make a distinction between the sinner and the sin, between the person and the action. We condemn the act of betrayal but we leave the judging of the betrayer to the one and only Judge—God. We say God hates the sin but loves the sinner, nevertheless.I do not remember any teaching in the Christian faith that says that Christ died only for the righteous. Remember what St. Paul said in Romans 5:8? “In this has God proven his love for us—that WHILE WE WERE YET SINNERS Christ died for us.” Paul even goes to the extent of declaring that nothing can ever separate us from the love of God because of Christ Jesus our Lord! He confidently declares that neither the Father nor the Son will ever bring charges against us because God’s desire is precisely to save us.In our Gospel today, Matthew quotes Jesus as saying, “Woe to that man by whom the Son of Man is betrayed. It would have been better for that man not to have been born.” I would probably say that to myself too if I were to find myself in the position of the betrayer. I’d probably say “I wish I had not been born.”Several verses away, this same evangelist tells us about the repentance of Judas. He says in Mt 27:3-5, “When the betrayer, Judas, saw that Jesus had been condemned, he deeply regretted what he had done. He returned the thirty pieces of silver to the chief priests and elders, and said, ‘I have sinned in betraying innocent blood.’”Unfortunately, it was too late. He could not save Jesus anymore even if he returned the money. And so he threw away the money, went off and in despair hanged himself. That’s what we usually fault Judas about—that, unlike Peter, he had totally lost trust in the Lord’s capacity to forgive. Try saying that to people who are in a state of depression or a brittle state of mental health.A few weeks ago, if you remember, I noted the parallelism between the drama in the life of the twelve sons of Jacob (in Gen. 37-50), and the twelve apostles of Jesus in the Gospels. In both instances the betrayer is one of the twelve. In the book of Genesis, it is Judah who proposes to sell Joseph as a slave for 20 pieces of silver. In the Gospels, it is Judas who hands him over to the Chief Priests for 30 pieces of silver! Take note, “Judah” and “Judas” in Hebrew (Yehudah) are basically the same name.In both instances, the betrayer repents. In the case of Judas, the repentance of course tragically ends with suicide. I wonder what would have happened if Judas had been crucified next to Jesus, he would probably have become the repentant thief who is forgiven. Unfortunately, the Gospels are silent about his forgiveness. They only say that “on the night he was betrayed,” Jesus “took the chalice...gave it to his disciples as the blood of the new covenant, “FOR THE FORGIVENESS OF SINS.”If you remember, I quoted that scene in the Joseph story where Joseph forgave Judah and his brothers. Remember when Joseph broke down and finally revealed who he was? He said, “I am Joseph... I am your brother whom you sold as slave into Egypt... Do not blame yourselves. It was really for the sake of saving lives that God had sent me here ahead of you... in an extraordinary act of deliverance.”There is something terribly wrong about Christians rushing too quickly into judgment, condemning people they regard as sinners, as if they were God. It sends shivers to my spine. It is no different at all from the tendency on the part of many Filipinos to agree that the best way of dealing with suspected criminals, addicts, communists and terrorists is by killing them extrajudicially. Forget about due process. I hope they remember the old saying that goes, “When you point an accusing finger on somebody, do not forget that three others are pointing at you.”
For a defense of the traditional Catholic belief that Judas is eternally lost ("the son of perdition"), see my article "Damned Lies: On the Destiny of Judas Iscariot," and Ed Feser's "Wishful Thinking About Judas."
