Did you ever think about Judas?
He was Jesus good friend. One of his followers. Someone he trusted and wanted to spread the Good News. But Judas didn't really love Jesus. Well at least not enough. He just sold him out. For money.
I mean he repented later. He was sorry he did it and tried to give it back. But you can't give it back when you take those thirty pieces of silver. Once you do it you can't undo it.
On the corner of my block there is a statue of St Lucy with her eyeballs on a plate. St. Lucy wouldn't marry a pagan and give up her devotion to Jesus. She took her dowry and gave it to the poor and starving. Her bridegroom was outraged and denounced her as a Christian. When they couldn't move her to change her ways or even burn her at the stake they gouged out her eyeballs with a fork. That is why she is traditionally depicted as holding a plate with her eyeballs on it.
You will find a statue of St Lucy in most real old style Churches. She is one of the most popular and venerated saints. You know you are in a real old school Catholic church when you see St Lucy with her eyeballs on a plate.
St Lucy wasn't like Judas. She didn't take the life of ease and comfort. I mean all she had to do was deny her faith. Maybe not even that. She would just have to hide it. Hide the symbols and practices and not give witness. You know what the Supreme Court wants us to do now. Then she would have all the riches of the world. She just had to pretend.
St Lucy was no Judas.
Are you Judas or St Lucy?
16 comments:
That's exactly what is happening. The sore winners are now going to try and cow those they believe are their religious, social, and spiritual enemies into supplication and compliance. Hide the accoutrements of your faith, deny what you are and it will all be cool. However, we don't have to because SCOTUS.
Subtle! lol :)
OK, I'm coming at this from a different angle.
St Lucy was typical of the early Christians. All they had to do was pray to one of the Roman gods and they were off the hook. They couldn't do that. So, they were persecuted, largely after Nero needed a scapegoat.
Troop's vision of Judas is the Whigs, the Rs who cut a deal with the Demos to neutralize the Tea Party (although the Libertarians, who insisted on running the show, did their part just be rolling over). Go along to get along.
It won't be that easy for a lot of other people. They want a lot more bakeries to run out of business. Like Crassus after he defeated Spartacus, they want to line the roads with the dead resisters.
But to remind us all of our strength, consider this. We can win if we fight.
After all the orgiasts did to destroy it, the #1 fast food place in the country is Chick-Fil-A.
PS There's been a lot about the Gnostic Gospel of Judas on the cable channels the last couple of years.
Christ makes a deal with Judas to betray Him saying he will be reviled by men, but favored by God. Given the fact that Christ was clearly afraid in the garden and, on the Cross, cries out, "My God, my God why hast thou forsaken me?". Judas, we assume, is horrified, but goes through with it. And, yeah, I'm a sucker for stuff where a bad guy(s) shows their good side when the chips are down, especially when it's to help a friend.
In the Gospels, we don't know that much about Judas, except that he managed the money and may have expected Christ to be a revolutionary. In his own way, a patriot.
So, another question, is he a bad guy, or a guy who made a ghastly mistake that he realized too late?
Villain or parable?
YMMV
Good question, edutcher.
"I am Judas(?)"
Judas was the A Rod of the Apostles. Just sayn'
A few years ago I noticed that some historians started rehabilitating Nero's reputation.
Despite murdering his mother and countless others, he was a great patron of the arts, you see, and the mobs,er public really loved him. AFAIK Nero was the only historical figure to have gotten gay married. He may have been the bride.
Darcy said...
Good question, edutcher.
"I am Judas(?)"
I know, I'm weird that way. The Gnostic Gospels are interesting.
I like the way you get some really alternative ideas out of them (and they were quite popular in their time).
For example, Christ had quite a posse. There were the Twelve (the Dazzling Dozen, if you will), the seven women Apostles (Magdalene, Mary, the Sweet Seven) and seventy more (the Sensational Seventy, this is where Matthias came from, along with Stephen, Timothy, and, The Blonde's favorite (she was a nurse) Dorcas).
As I say, I'm weird that way.
PS Great post, Troop. Should have said it up front.
We are all Judases, but we should be striving to be St. Lucys.
I always wanted to get a statue of St Lucy holding a football but Father Chris wouldn't go for it.
Lucy in the eyes with tridents.
I was raised as a Catholic. I can't recall ever seeing a statue of Lucy as described by Trooper. I don't think such a statue would have brought me closer to God. Severed eyeballs are more the stuff of Stephen King than religious contemplation, but it takes all kinds.....,.When you stop to think about it, the centerpiece of Catholic worship is a young man in a sagging diaper in the process of being tortured to death. And it works. There's something spiritual about it.
It's an Italian thing. Santa Lucia is the patron saint of people with eye problems.
Several Catholic old-school churches in heavily Catholic New Orleans w. such statues..
New Orleans has a lot of guineas. In fact it was a toss up if our family was going to Brooklyn or New Orleans when my grandmother immigrated in 1906.
New Orleans has a lot of guineas. In fact it was a toss up if our family was going to Brooklyn or New Orleans when my grandmother immigrated in 1906.
Post a Comment