Holy Week Meditation: Spy Wednesday -- Did Jesus Love Judas?

The short answer: ABSOLUTELY! Perhaps His compassion was greater for Judas than for all the others knowing his tragic end. Judas was one of the chosen ones among the disciples called to be part of the select twelve! And even given the particular responsibility of holding the purse and administering alms to the poor. Wasn't giving him that role an act of trust?

And while I'm reflecting on those whom Jesus loved, what about the pharisees and sadducees plotting to kill him? Did He love them?

Reading a good book and reflecting on suffering

I'm re-reading Fr. Owen Francis Dudley's Masterful Monk series about the problem of human happiness. I just finished reading The Shadow on the Earth: A Tale of Tragedy and Triumph first published in 1945. It explores the meaning of pain and suffering. There are many non-fiction books on the subject, but fiction can often grip your mind and heart more powerfully than non-fiction. 

The protagonist, in the flower of his youth, has an accident on a mountain in the Alps. He is carried, broken and bleeding, to a monastery where he is treated and pronounced permanently crippled from a serious spinal injury. How will he respond to the tragedy in his life? That is the conflict in the story.