Thirty Pieces of Silver

Homily for Wednesday of Holy Week

It is only in the Gospel of St. Matthew that we hear of the money that Judas received for his act of betrayal. The other Gospels only mention that it was money that proved to be Judas’ motive. We know that St. Matthew was writing his Gospel for a Jewish community and that he includes more references to the Jewish Scriptures than all three of the other Gospels. The thirty pieces of silver is St. Matthew’s way of showing how Jesus is fulfilling another prophecy, linking the betrayal of Jesus to the betrayal of the shepherd. In the Book of the prophet Zechariah, we also learn that thirty pieces of silver was the amount paid for a rejected (or fired) shepherd.

Let those thirty pieces of silver be our mindfulness cue today. Each time we turn away from God’s love, we are guilty of betrayal. Unlike Judas we have the means of receiving God’s gift of forgiveness, a gift worth much more than the silver Judas received.