March 31, 2026
Tuesday of Holy Week
Fr. Adriano Bertero
The Lord give you peace. I am Fr. Adriano Bertero and I live in Assisi at the Sanctuary of the Porziuncola, I serve at the Penitentiary, in the Library and at the Communications Office. Today, Holy Tuesday, we are offered a very dense and intense passage taken from chapter 13 of the Gospel of Jesus according to Saint John.
According to the liturgy we have now decidedly entered Holy Week and are close to the most radiant Paschal Triduum. At that time the scene took place in the Upper Room in Jerusalem during the so called Last Supper. The atmosphere is one of celebration, familiarity, joy. But, while they were at table, at a certain moment Jesus speaks from within a deep disturbance, eh, how this disturbance makes Jesus close to us, a companion on the journey, very human, and says that sentence heavy as a stone, "Truly, truly I say to you, one of you will betray me". For how long had Jesus had this awareness? Did he wait to be certain of what he was about to affirm? Did he wait for the opportune moment? Did he search for the most fitting words, in short, however it was, in that joyful, serene, convivial scene he decides to drop a bomb, and inevitably, as happens every time a bomb hits the ground, it unleashes panic. A flurry of hypotheses, glances, mouths silent and wide open, astonished, of, what is happening? what did the Master say? who is the one he speaks of? is it I? is it he? who is it? The hearts and mouths of those present are seized by dismay and his words cast them into confusion. Betrayer? He said betrayer, meaning?
In this case it is not about adultery and not even defamation, it is not a fake news or the spreading of confidential information. It is rather a matter of a sale. Judas, we will learn later, in fact sold information for thirty pieces of silver, equivalent to 2500, 3000 euros today. He sold the information that the soldiers would find him in the garden of Gethsemane and so that they might recognize him the Iscariot would give a kiss to the Master. In short, truly, then as now, pecunia non olet! Money from whatever source does not stink!
They say curiosity is feminine but, in that setting there seem to have been no women, and the hunger to know who such an "infamous" one among the Twelve might be runs quickly, like an electric shock. Peter, who after Jesus is the highest in rank, suggests to John who was near Jesus to lean his head on the breast of Jesus to ask for some further detail, here is another very sweet scene that anyone, at least once, has desired to live and that, God willing, may happen to us one day. And the detail arrives, ominous and loud, like a gunshot in the night, "It is the one for whom I shall dip the morsel and give it to him".
To us, who know the subsequent events, it even seems irreverent that none of those at table understand what Jesus reveals and yet the text says precisely so. In reality we too understand little of the way the Lord reveals himself. Little, and often conditioned by what are our expectations, our wounds and our interior structures. To us however it is given to know the entire course of the life of Jesus and, knowing it, we are beneficiaries of his mercy which, as a consequence, gives us the strength to share that same mercy.
Francis of Assisi also experienced a sort of betrayal. We are in the very last years of his life, around 1225, 1226. The Franciscan Order, having grown rapidly and unexpectedly, is taking a direction that seems to distance itself from its origins. To support and sustain the Rule confirmed in 1223 Francis in the last months of his life, it was late spring of 1226, writes the Great Testament from which, accompanied by some bitterness, some expressions revealing his will emerge. One for all, "All, Minister General, ministers and Custos, are bound, by obedience, not to add anything to these words and not to take anything away from them". The friars, now numerous and many of whom learned and powerful, sought to adjust the Rule by requesting and accepting dispensations, privileges and shortcuts, but Francis abhors all this and tries, to tell the truth not with great result, to reaffirm his will.
The Gospel episode ends with the well known dialogue in which Peter asks the Lord Quo vadis? Where are you going? To which follows the frank, abrasive and dramatic conversation between the two. Poor Peter, enthusiastic, impulsive, generous, and equally, we might say, a beginner, naive. Peter moves us, disarms us and, at the same time, concerns us. We too, who knows how many times, have set out decisively only to run aground in some backwash, wavering, uncertain and perhaps even weeping.
The rooster, a very fine animal, even in its not great stature, is an imposing creature, proud, a wake up caller, it would do us good to have one or alternatively even just its representation in some of the environments in which we live. A rooster that keeps alive the memory of the denial, of the gaze of Jesus and of the bitter weeping of Peter which, we know, opens to forgiveness, to mercy, to a new beginning.
Greetings to all from the land of Saint Francis, a blessed Holy Week and a Happy Easter of the Resurrection.
