WITH YOUR OWN HAND… (Part I)

It is Holy Week, and as is the tradition in many parts of Latin America, the life, crucifixion, and resurrection of Jesus Christ are commemorated. And alongside all the religious observances come all the culinary traditions unique to this season.

Were we to attempt to analyze every mystery, teaching, prophecy, or miracle described in the Gospels of the Apostles, we would require months of deep meditation to discern each one.

During Holy Week, it is customary to reflect upon good and evil—to distinguish the good from the bad, to perform acts of penance, to make solemn vows, and to sanctify covenants. This is done with the purpose of learning to live with integrity, bound by the firm promise to remain loyal to Christianity—so as not to betray our faith, nor to become traitors who destroy the entire legacy that Jesus Christ left behind for our own well-being.

Judas Iscariot was the villain in this story. He betrayed Jesus Christ. He sold Him for thirty pieces of silver and handed Him over with a kiss—only to later hang himself with a rope he had fashioned with his own hands.

If I were writing a dramatic novel, the scene of the kiss would be a striking moment—pivotal to the story’s success. But I am not writing a dramatic novel filled with fiction. I am attempting to highlight one of the most impactful events in the life of Jesus Christ—the event that triggered the entire Via Crucis (Way of the Cross) that led to His crucifixion and, ultimately, to His death upon the cross.

For having betrayed Jesus Christ, Judas, too, endured his own Via Crucis—a path that also led him to his death. Yet, there was one profound difference: Jesus Christ was murdered, whereas Judas Iscariot took his life—by his own hand.

There are times in life when we ourselves become the villains—traitors and destroyers of our dreams, happiness, progress, or success. And we surrender ourselves to apathy, laziness, disdain, or simply to failure—sealing our fate with a tender kiss, reflected in the mirror of life.

For through our actions, we sabotage our opportunity to live and fully enjoy everything that surrounds us, and—much like Judas Iscariot—we tie a noose around our necks, with which we drag along the guilt of past mistakes, the stress of adverse outcomes, unresolved problems, compulsive depression, and a lack of self-love. Thus, adopting a completely negative attitude toward ourselves, we end up destroying everything we have achieved—until, figuratively speaking, we end up hanging ourselves with our OWN HAND.