Matthew Chapter 27 SD 480p

Chapter twenty-seven continues the passion narrative. The chapter begins by noting “when morning came” Jesus is bound and brought to Pontius Pilate for judgment. (Matthew 27:1-2) This is followed by an account of Judas’ suicide. Unlike Peter, who betrayed Jesus and then turned back to Jesus, hoping and believing that Jesus would forgive him, Judas’ sorrow, writes Benedict XVI, “turns into despair. Now he sees only himself and his darkness; he no longer sees the light of Jesus, which can illumine and overcome the darkness. He shows us the wrong type of remorse: the type that is unable to hope, that sees only its own darkness, the type that is destructive and in no way authentic.” Joseph Ratzinger, Jesus of Nazareth Part Two, Holy Week: From the Entrance into Jerusalem to the Resurrection, trans. Vatican Secretariat of State (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2011), 69.