Daily Bread - Day 53

Learn another lesson from the case of Judas Iscariot. Do not think that sin in the heart is quite the same as when thrown into some outward act. They are in the same line, as Holy Scripture teaches, but the outward act gives sin a power it had not before. When Judas had become the betrayer of his master, he began to realize what he had done and what he had lost. He felt that he had no longer part nor lot with the eleven faithful disciples. The outward act of sin is commonly only the discovery of the previous secret corruption of heart and life. This is God's way of showing men now what the day of judgment will fully open out, that the wicked can no more have fellowship with those, nor a portion, where and with whom they never had any true share. It will be as it is written: the wicked shall not rise again in judgment, nor sinners in the council of the just. In this terrible isolation Judas turned to his accomplices. He could not expect that these would relax their hold of Christ, for his confession of evil done by him. But here the gulf of separation opens out again. What is that to us, told him that as he had cut himself off from the holy and good, he was cast off by the wicked. Ah! there is no fearful pit of solitude and darkness like that which we may make for ourselves by sin. It has this curse upon it, that it divides us from those whose friendship is worth having, and forms no tie with others that will endure. My son (does it not say to us), if sinners shall entice thee consent thou not. Have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness, either in heart or life.

- text taken from Daily Bread - Bring a Few Morning Meditations for the Use of Catholic Christians by Father Richard Waldo Sibthorp