It’s Holy Week—and the tension between mercy and vengeance isn’t just a theological debate. It’s front-page news, from Bethany to Gaza.

Today’s traditional mass readings from Scripture present us with profound images of obedience, sacrifice, and the tension between vengeance and mercy. In Isaias 50:5–10, the suffering servant speaks:​

The Lord God hath opened my ear, and I do not resist: I have not gone back. I have given my body to the strikers, and my cheeks to them that plucked them: I have not turned away my face from them that rebuked me, and spit upon me. The Lord God is my helper, therefore am I not confounded: therefore have I set my face as a most hard rock, and I know that I shall not be confounded. He is near that justifieth me, who will contend with me? let us stand together, who is my adversary? let him come near to me. Behold the Lord God is my helper: who is he that shall condemn me? Lo, they shall all be destroyed as a garment, the moth shall eat them up. Who is there among you that feareth the Lord, that heareth the voice of his servant, that hath walked in darkness, and hath no light? let him hope in the name of the Lord, and lean upon his God.

This passage, often interpreted as a prophecy of Christ’s Passion, portrays a figure who, despite suffering and humiliation, remains steadfast, trusting in God’s help. The servant’s resolve—“I have set my face as a most hard rock”—doesn’t describe passivity. It describes a man who knows what’s coming, and walks toward it anyway. It echoes Jesus’ determination as he approaches his crucifixion.

In the Gospel of St John 12:1–9, six days before the Passover, we find Jesus at supper in Bethany with Mary, Martha, Lazarus—and Judas Iscariot. It is a moment of intimate devotion–Mary anoints Christ’s feet with costly ointment. Judas objects:

​Jesus therefore, six days before the pasch, came to Bethania, where Lazarus had been dead, whom Jesus raised to life. And they made him a supper there: and Martha served: but Lazarus was one of them that were at table with him. Mary therefore took a pound of ointment of right spikenard, of great price, and anointed the feet of Jesus, and wiped his feet with her hair; and the house was filled with the odour of the ointment. Then one of his disciples, Judas Iscariot, he that was about to betray him, said: Why was not this ointment sold for three hundred pence, and given to the poor?

Now he said this, not because he cared for the poor; but because he was a thief, and having the purse, carried the things that were put therein. Jesus therefore said: Let her alone, that she may keep it against the day of my burial. For the poor you have always with you; but me you have not always. A great multitude therefore of the Jews knew that he was there; and they came, not for Jesus’ sake only, but that they might see Lazarus, whom he had raised from the dead.

Mary’s act of anointing Jesus is a bold gesture of love and recognition—an acknowledgment of who he is and what he is about to suffer. She pours out what she has in an act of humble devotion. Judas’s objection, cloaked in false concern for the poor, reveals the cold calculus of political expediency. He plays the faux-compassion card to mask his greed. That tension—between love and the calculated logic of power—is the same war playing out in boardrooms, newsrooms, and war rooms for 2000 years since.

Because while Judas elevates utilitarian logic over sacrificial love, we’re reminded how often modern geopolitics does the same.

It’s a long way from Bethany to Gaza, but the human heart hasn’t changed. Even now, calls for peace are emerging—not from pacifists, not from bishops or bloggers, but from battle-hardened intelligence officers. A group of over 250 Mossad veterans and nearly 200 reserve medical officers have signed letters calling for an end to the ongoing conflict, emphasizing the sanctity of life over vengeance. Their plea underscores a desire for peace and the return of hostages by many Israelis, even at the cost of ceasing hostilities:

“We, the Mossad intelligence and special services veterans, who have dedicated many years to safeguarding the country’s security, will not continue to stand by. We express our full support for the pilots’ letter, which also reflects our deep concern for the future of the country, and we join the call to act immediately to reach an agreement to return all 59 abductees home, without delay, even at the cost of ceasing fighting.”

They concluded the letter saying, “The sanctity of life, Mr. Prime Minister, takes precedence over ‘God of Revenge.'”

“We will return [to service] and stand firm whenever necessary. We feel with pain that the continued fighting in Gaza is intended primarily to serve political and personal interests without a security purpose. The continued fighting does not advance the achievement of the goals of the war declared from the beginning and only endangers IDF soldiers and the lives of our citizens being held hostage.”

At first glance, such a letter may seem a world away from the Gospels. But perhaps not. We keep shouting for justice, but only when it serves our narrative. Our wars are sold with slogans and funded with debt, while our children overdose in silence, while they are trafficked and tortured in Satanic occult rituals, while our churches echo hollow.

What makes this moment striking is not merely the political dissent—but the moral clarity. These voices echo the Gospel call to place human dignity above cycles of revenge. These are not sentimental voices, but hardened men trained in statecraft and secrecy.

Vengeance starts as principle–at least in theory–because it ends as propaganda. Judas knew the language. So do most modern governments. But what makes this moment chilling is that even the spies have started quoting Scripture more accurately than our politicians.

And no—I’m not here to argue that terrorists should be hugged or that wars never need to be fought. Christ didn’t flinch from righteous judgment. He cursed the fig tree. He flipped tables. He warned of hell with a clarity most modern pulpits are too afraid to echo. Justice and righteous anger are most certainly part of Christ’s ministry.

But there’s a difference between righteous justice and revenge masquerading as virtue.

The call to mercy—real, costly mercy—is always a threat to empires. It exposes their hollowness. That’s why they kill the prophets. That’s why Mary’s gesture scandalized Judas. That’s why the cross was necessary in the first place. The courage to choose peace where possible reflects the disruptive, divine logic of the Gospel in direction opposition to this fallen world run by fallen men—a logic that breaks cycles of violence by offering the only alternative that can possibly save the world for the right reason.

The moneybag behind the moralism is not the right reason.

Christ’s sacrificial love is.

How that will play out in the Middle East remains to be seen. And to be clear, I am not suggesting that any terrorist for any state should be allowed to roam free based on some misplaced sense of mercy.

But we should still ask the question: Does the cry of these veterans show that an alternative is possible?

Because the cycle of political vengeance—whether in the halls of the Sanhedrin or the bunkers of modern nation-states—can never redeem what it destroys. Not if destruction is the end goal in itself.

As we reflect on these Scriptures and current events, we’re reminded that true strength lies not in performative domination but in sacrificial love that moves and inspires on its own accord. Another hunger that could save America, as a complement to and an  inevitable result of the difficult act of fasting from food I wrote about on Friday, is a hunger for God’s righteousness, God’s justice, God’s peace.

May this Holy Week inspire us to embody the humility of the suffering servant, the devotion of Mary, and the courage to pursue Christ-like peace over vengeance. It is a peace most elusive, a peace that begins by ending the interior war we wage against the Spirit of God within ourselves, a peace prompted by a strength that absorbs the strike without flinching, not because it’s weak, but because as Isaias says–it’s already won.