“…most of our sins are not sins of violence, but sins of affection gone wrong. After all, who is it that we sin against the most? Our families and our friends, the ones we are the closest to. While we may never take up a weapon to hurt someone in a physical way, we all use our mouths and our minds as weapons to inflict emotional harm on others. In some way, we all betray friends, confidences, and courtesies and in so doing, we all betray Christ.” (Fr. Stavros N. Akrotirianakis)
“As Saint Paul points out, “There is none righteous, no, not one” (Rom 3:10). Sin clings to all men. Even among those who knew the Lord Jesus in the flesh – even among the beloved Twelve, whom the Lord Himself chose – there were those “who would betray Him” (Jn 6:64).” (Dynamis 12/23/2019)
“As with the denier Peter, the persecutor Paul, and the prophet Isaiah before them, the reaction to the encounter with the Lord is the confession of one’s own sinfulness—that we are, each, complicit in the death of Christ and his persecution and that he is our victim in each of our acts of violence and victimization… Peter’s acknowledgment that he had betrayed Christ, that he was complicit in his death, but is nevertheless, and as a forgiven sinner, called to be an apostle, proclaiming the forgiveness of Christ, his mercy and his love—a new creation.” (Fr. John Behr)
“When we read that “the devil had already prompted Judas Iscariot to betray Jesus,” we understand that Satan’s program of envy never changes. He was tossed from heaven for his jealousy; he dared test Jesus in the wilderness by ordering the Lord to worship him (Matthew 4:9). Jesus had His own reasons for inviting Judas to be an apostle, but one must continue following the Lord and avoiding the promptings of the devil. Even to the moment of our death, we are susceptible to betrayal of our faith.” (Fr. Vladimir Berzonsky)
“For repentance is not in the formal enumeration of one’s shortcomings, mistakes, or even crimes. Repentance is born, first of all, of the experience of estrangement from God, from the joy of fellowship with Him, from the original life that God created and with which he endowed us. It is comparatively easy to admit one’s minor mistakes and shortcomings. But how much more difficult it is to suddenly find out that I have destroyed, wasted, and betrayed my spiritual beauty—that I have drifted so far from my true home, from my true life, that something priceless has been damaged in the very fabric of my life. And yet this is precisely what repentance is, which necessarily includes a deep desire to return, to regain once more the home that was lost.” (Fr. Alexander Schmemann)