We must learn many different lessons in life in order to be decent human beings. One of these lessons is congruency. Judas was incongruent: while stealing from his community's common fund, he criticized Mary for what he judged as wastefulness, and even more hypocritically pretended to be concerned about the poor. Congruency is the complete integration of all our thoughts, intentions, words, actions and attitudes. More simply expressed, congruency is total honesty: we must be honest to ourselves by being honest before God and in all our relationships

In the last few years we have seen, more clearly than ever before, how much damage to society which dishonesty, incongruence and irresponsibility have caused. Avaricious people in the world of finance and banking are no better than Judas: they have betrayed the trust which we put in them; they have betrayed the poor and increased the misery and suffering of the world.

No doubt they all led apparently respectable lives and appeared to be decent and upright citizens. Was Judas any different? As a follower of Jesus, he must have appeared to others to be a good man, but he betrayed the trust placed in him.