Of Judas, Peter, and Conversion to the Illuminative Way
Gospel Reflection for Wednesday of Holy Week, April 16th, 2025
Today is the day traditionally known as Spy Wednesday. Today we remember the selling and handing over of Our Lord by the traitor, Judas Iscariot. I want to offer a little bit of a developed meditation on the difference between Peter and Judas and how each one of them was offered a conversion experience and yet one took it while the other did not.
Today’s Gospel reads:
“One of the Twelve, who was called Judas Iscariot, went to the chief priests and said, "What are you willing to give me if I hand him over to you?" They paid him thirty pieces of silver, and from that time on he looked for an opportunity to hand him over.” Matthew 26:14-16
Judas is an interesting case as it has always puzzled many Christians that Christ even chose him to be an Apostle. Why even call the traitor to begin with? I want to address this from the point of view that the Lord loved Judas and He desired salvation for him. He called Him to be an apostle because even the hardened sinner is created for heaven and to do something great. For Judas, he was meant to be seated on a throne in heaven but through His free will, he rejected the Lord. Of course, Our Lord, being omniscient, knew this, and Matthias was chosen before the foundation of the world to replace the traitor, but the fact remains that Judas was offered and desired for this office and yet rejected it.
On Sunday, we heard the Passion according to St. Luke and within this narrative, we hear about the denial of St. Peter:
“But he replied, "I tell you, Peter, before the cock crows this day, you will deny three times that you know me."… After arresting him they led him away and took him into the house of the high priest; Peter was following at a distance. They lit a fire in the middle of the courtyard and sat around it, and Peter sat down with them. When a maid saw him seated in the light, she looked intently at him and said, "This man too was with him." But he denied it saying, "Woman, I do not know him." A short while later someone else saw him and said, "You too are one of them"; but Peter answered, "My friend, I am not." About an hour later, still another insisted, "Assuredly, this man too was with him, for he also is a Galilean." But Peter said, "My friend, I do not know what you are talking about."” Luke 22:34; 54-60.
Our Lord reveals to Peter that he will deny knowing Him three times and this comes to pass during Our Lord’s initial trial before Caiaphas. I want to compare these two situations. In both cases, we have a man called to be an Apostle who is given an opportunity to choose the Lord over a certain good. For Judas, it was money. For Peter, it was his life, at least in his estimation. Both of them fell into sin, for Judas it was greed and for Peter it was cowardice. Both apostles then rejected the Lord and betrayed Him. Judas willingly handed Him over and Peter refused to acknowledge Him before man.1 Both Apostles find themselves in dire spiritual states and yet, the outcome for them is very different.
Peter and Judas are offered the same opportunity, to choose Christ. Both reject it, though, for different motives. What happens next for both men shows the immense difference between the two and is an important point of departure for us all in the spiritual life.
Fr. Reginald Garrigou-Lagrange often references the life of the Apostles when he writes about the stages of the interior life. He connects the initial conversion of the Apostles in their call by Christ to be the beginning of the interior life within them. To that end, both Peter and Judas were called and thus the seed of Eternal Life, Sanctifying Grace was given to them at their baptisms. Thus, the spiritual life begins to grow in this stage which we call the Purgative Way or the Way of the Beginners. Garrigou then points to the passion as a threshold experience for the Apostles. It is a second conversion which is characterized by the Dark Night of the Senses spoken of in St. John of the Cross where they experience a great dryness and absence of God. It is here that I want to dwell on these two apostles. For Judas, even after He betrayed the Lord, he could have returned to the Lord with a repentant heart. Had this happened, this event would have been an immensely powerful conversion experience. Many times, the Lord allows us to fall into sin because the conversion afterward propels us deeper and faster into union with God. The same thing could have happened to Judas who, returning to the Lord will all his heart, would have been welcomed back and been a great example to future generations of conversion and repentance. No doubt, this dark night would have led to the Illuminative Way or the Way of the Intermediates. Unfortunately, this did not happen.
In St. Peter’s case, we do see an extraordinary act of repentance on his part:
“Just as he was saying this, the cock crowed, and the Lord turned and looked at Peter; and Peter remembered the word of the Lord, how he had said to him, "Before the cock crows today, you will deny me three times." He went out and began to weep bitterly.” Luke 22:60-62.
At the sight of Our Lord, Peter is thrust into sorrow for the grave sin that he had committed and runs away to weep bitterly for the love of the Lord. This is his second conversion. This is his dark night which leads into the Illuminative way. Garrigou writes on this:
“When did his second conversion begin? Immediately after his triple denial, as we are told in the Gospel of St. Luke…Under the glance of Jesus and the grace which accompanied it, Peter’s repentance must have been deep indeed and must have been the beginning of a new life for him.”2
This second conversion to new life is moved by the loving glance of the Lord and the sorrow with which Peter responds is greater than the sin committed and thus it has the power to thrust his soul ever higher in the way of sanctity. On this, St. Thomas writes:
“Even after a grave sin, if the soul has a sorrow which is truly fervent and proportionate to the degree of grace which has been lost, it will recover this same degree of grace; grace may even revive in the soul in a higher degree, if the contrition is still more fervent. Thus the soul has not to begin again completely from the beginning, but it continues from the point which it had reached at the moment of the fall.”3
The teaching of the Angelic Doctor describes what happened in the soul of St. Peter beautifully. From the dredges of his sin of rejection, Peter rises through conversion into the Illuminative Way of the interior life and is further prepared for union with God.
I believe this same process could have happened to Judas if he had cooperated with the grace of God. Instead, Judas falls into despair and as our Lord reveals, is lost, “While I was with them, I kept them in your name, which you have given me; I have guarded them, and none of them is lost but the son of perdition, that the Scripture might be fulfilled.”4
This is the great difference between Peter and Judas. Both come up against a trial of the spiritual life where God is beckoning them to cross the Dark Night and enter into the Illuminative Way. Peter encounters this event and plunges into the depths of God’s mercy and is restored to a greater height of sanctity than he was before. Judas, on the other hand, recoils from the dark night, loses faith and hope, and is ultimately lost.
As we cross from Lent into the Triduum, let us focus on the lot of these two souls, both loved by Jesus Christ and both called, but only one was chosen, and only one persevered to the end. It was repentance that facilitated that perseverance. This is the same repentance that we are called to. The climb that St. Peter experienced through the stages of the interior life is the same one we are called to. We do not know when our dark night will come. We do not know when that second conversion will be placed in front of us. For Judas, who had so much to gain, he chose worldly offers over suffering of the cross. Peter embraced the cross and rose to a much higher level of sanctity because of it. Let us be like Peter and weep bitterly for our sins so that we may rise with Christ in the glory of the resurrection that is nearly here.
Cf. Matthew 10:33.
Reginald Garrigou-Lagrange, The Three Conversions in the Spiritual Life, 33-34.
St. Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae IIIa q 89, a. 2.
John 17:12.
Your reflection came at a perfect time for me . Thank you!!!
The only way that Christ can be within us is by His Spirit. The interior life and sanctifying grace became available for humanity at Pentecost. This is the beginning of sanctity. Christ chose the apostles before Pentecost. What they experienced then was a preparation for sanctity depending upon their disposition. Maybe Judas was initially chosen for the role that he would eventually play in fulfilling prophecy. He didn’t proceed to Pentecost as the other apostles did.