Day 179: Discouragement, Distraction, Despair

Summary

Podcast Summary: The Rosary in a Year (with Fr. Mark-Mary Ames) – Day 179: Discouragement, Distraction, Despair
Date: June 28, 2026
Host: Fr. Mark-Mary Ames, CFR

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Episode Overview

This episode explores the spiritual dangers of discouragement, distraction, and despair through a meditation on the first Sorrowful Mystery—the Agony in the Garden. Fr. Mark-Mary uses the famous painting The Arrest (Kiss of Judas) by Giotto di Bondone to guide listeners into a deeper understanding of Judas's betrayal and what it reveals about the human heart. Through theological reflection and personal honesty, the episode invites listeners to examine their own journeys and to place their hope in Christ’s unending mercy.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Visio Divina: Meditating with Sacred Art

• Painting Description: The Arrest (Kiss of Judas) by Giotto (1305)
  • Judas, in a striking yellow cloak, leans in to kiss Jesus amid a tense, crowded scene.
  • “Sticks and torches protrude against a midnight blue sky... At the center, a man in a draping yellow cloak. Judas steps forward and envelops Christ.” (03:12)
  • Emotional depth and human realism distinguish Giotto’s work from earlier, more stylized portrayals.

2. The Discomfort of Judas's Betrayal

• Fr. Mark-Mary reflects on feeling uncomfortable gazing at Judas, acknowledging the uncomfortable truth that any of us could fall as he did.
  • “Where Judas is, I could still end up. I could have done it... Thanks be to God, right? Thanks be to God, no, I’m not there and I don’t have any plans of ending up anywhere close to there, but I could. I have what it takes.” (04:31)

3. The Danger of “Othering” Sinners

• Drawing on St. Augustine, Fr. Mark-Mary warns against distancing ourselves from the fallen:
  • “Do not say, I would not have done what that man did. Say rather, if God had not helped me, I could have done worse.” (05:00)
• Applies a lesson from recovery communities: Instead of saying, “I’d never go that far,” the healthy response is “Yeah, I get how you ended up there. It could have been me.” (05:57)

4. The Path from Discouragement to Despair

• Fr. Mark-Mary speculates on Judas’s journey from earnest call to tragic end, mapping a spiritual trajectory:
  • Discouragement: Begins with genuine enthusiasm but leads to disappointment, possibly through small hurts, doubts, or unmet expectations within the group of disciples.
  • Distraction: Once discouraged, Judas loses focus on Jesus and fills the void—perhaps, as John notes, by obsessing over the money bag (the common purse). Spiritual life grows hollow, emptied of meaning.
  • Despair: Having betrayed Jesus, Judas faces his actions. Yet, instead of turning back and seeking mercy, he despairs: “He put a period there. He never allowed his eyes to return to Jesus, who could make him new.” (11:45)

5. Examination of Conscience for Listeners

• Fr. Mark-Mary connects Judas’s story to our everyday lives:
  • “It’s possible for us to get discouraged with Jesus for what he’s doing or not doing in our lives, or to get discouraged with ourselves... But we’ll stick around–maybe we’ll go to Mass. We’ll still call ourselves Catholic... but we’re not connected.” (10:19–10:38)
• Warns that one can “live our whole lives like this, being around Jesus, but having no relationship with him.” (10:58)
• The antidote: Honesty before God and turning to Him with hope.

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On the Universality of Weakness:
  • “If God had not helped me, I could have done worse.” —St. Augustine, cited by Fr. Mark-Mary (05:00)
• On Judas’s Progression:
  • “Starting with discouragement... something happened that he couldn’t deal with or push through. And then he became disconnected and potentially disinterested from the person of Jesus.” (08:33)
• Examination for Listeners:
  • “We might say our prayers, but we’re just not connected. We’re not expecting anything from Jesus, and we’re not willing to give anything to Jesus...” (10:38)
• On Hope and Mercy:
  • “We end today not focusing on the crimes of Judas nor the sins of our own doing, but the mercy of Jesus.” (13:22)
  • “There is no depth to which we have fallen or no darkness in which we could be enclosed that Jesus won’t come to seek us out, to bring us home and to make us new.” (13:05)

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• Introduction and Art Meditation: 01:03–06:00
• Personal Reflection on Judas: 06:00–08:00
• Exploring Judas’s Spiritual Decline: 08:00–11:12
• Bringing it Home: A Warning and Hope for Listeners: 11:12–13:32
• Closing Prayer and Rosary: 13:32–17:16

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Tone and Approach

Fr. Mark-Mary’s style is pastoral, personal, and honest—offering both challenge and comfort. He invites listeners not to despair at their weaknesses, but to trust in Jesus’s readiness to restore, no matter how far we may feel from Him. The episode closes with the Rosary, enveloping the reflection in prayer and hope.

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Conclusion

Day 179 offers a deeply reflective meditation on the subtle but perilous movement from discouragement to distraction and, ultimately, despair—drawing a parallel between Judas’s experience and the temptations all Christians face. Fr. Mark-Mary challenges listeners to courageously examine their hearts, but always within “a fence of hope,” trusting that Jesus’s mercy is deeper than our darkest failures.

Transcript

[Matt]

Foreign.

[Mark Mary]

Mark Mary with Franciscan Friars, the Renewal and this is the Rosary in Year podcast, where through prayer and meditation, the Rosary brings us deeper into relationship with Jesus and Mary and becomes a source of grace for the whole world. The Rosary in a Year is brought to you by Ascension.

[Franciscan Friar]

This is day 179.

[Mark Mary]

To download the prayer plan for Rosary in a year, visit ascensionpress.com rosary in a year or text RIY to 33777.

[Franciscan Friar]

You'll get an outline of how we're

[Mark Mary]

going to pray each month and it's a great way to track your progress. The best place to listen to the Podcast in the Ascension app. There are special features built just for this podcast and also recordings of the full rosary with myself and other friars. On behalf of myself and the whole team here at Ascension, we wanted to take this opportunity to thank everyone who's helped support this podcast financially. Your generosity is so appreciated and helps us to reach as many people as possible. And if you haven't already, please consider supporting [e-mail] support

[Franciscan Friar]

today we are meditating

[Matt]

upon and praying with the first sorrowful

[Franciscan Friar]

mystery, the agony of Jesus in the garden, with help from a painting entitled the Arrest of Kiss of Judas by the artist Giotto. So our artist today is Giotto di Bondone. I don't know a lot, so I'm looking them up how to say it, you know, and they're, they're saying it in the accent and so I feel a little ridiculous. But Giotto di Bondone is my closest I can get to it. And that's the name. Giotto is what I'm going to call him. So anyway, he's born in the year 1267. He died in the year 1337, and he is known as the father of Renaissance art. Giotto was born near Florence and he rose from humble origins. Tradition claims that he was a shepherd boy discovered by another painting while he was sketching sheep on a rock. Giotto trained in Florence, revolutionizing medieval art by rejecting the rigid Byzantine style in favor of naturalism and emotional depth. So our painting today was done in the year 1305, and it is a groundbreaking fresco from the Arena Chapel in Padua. This work marks a pivotal shift from medieval stylization to proto Renaissance naturalism. Giotto's depiction of Judas betrayal is celebrated for its emotional intensity and innovative composition. And now a description of our painting. Sticks and torches protrude against a midnight blue sky. Carried by a restless crowd. At the center, a man in a draping yellow cloak. Judas steps forward and envelops Christ. His arms and cloak surround Jesus as he leans in, his face nearly nose to nose with Christ. His lips are pursed, primed for a kiss. Christ meets his gaze with a psalm penetrating look. A gold halo encircles Christ's brown hair. Throngs crowd in towards the central embrace with tension and confrontation. Some faces are fully rendered, while others recede into the agitated mob, visible only as the tops of heads, soldiers, noblemen and commoners alike. Peter, also marked by a golden halo, aggressively welds a knife. Brow furrowed in anger, he strikes the ear of a man whose arm is raised towards Christ. So as I'm looking at our painting here by Giotto, I gotta say, it kind of makes me uncomfortable. It does make me uncomfortable. So the discomfort from today, it's going to be from looking at an uncomfortable truth about ourselves. And the truth is that like personally today, looking at Judas in this painting here, pretty quickly, I think to myself, where Judas is, I could still end up. I could have done it. Thanks be to God, right? Thanks be to God. No, I'm not there. And I don't have any plans of ending up anywhere close to there, but I could. I have what it takes. And to be fair, like, I think I want to back this with some authority. This isn't a novel sentiment before a sinner, right? The great St. Augustine, writing in the early fifth century. So this is an ancient text, right? And in Sermon 204, he writes, do not say I would not have done what that man did. Say rather, if God had not helped me, I could have done worse. This isn't specific to Judas, but just about a sinner. But I think this holds up. If God had not helped me, I could have done worse. And now just maybe to pull from another authority, another source. And it's something I've referenced here before, and hopefully I'm doing it justice. But my understanding is someone who has been in recovery, right, and who's been working the steps when they're at a meeting and they hear someone else share their story, even if they never did what that person did, or never went as far with their addiction as the other person did, they're not there, listening, thinking to themselves. Well, at least I never did that. They think to themselves, yeah, I get

[Matt]

how you ended up there.

[Franciscan Friar]

It could have been me. I could have ended up there too. And I believe that there's something true and healthy about getting to this place. While, yes, we do have to balance it, you see, when we look at the greatest of saints, right, we can't think of them as other than us. Like, we have the same humanity, we have with grace, like, what it takes. Also, when we look at the greatest of sinners, we can't think of them as other than us either. We also have the same humanity and we have without grace, what it takes. Now I'd like to do a little exploring of this and what might have happened in the life of Judas, like, and how did he get here? Admittedly it is a bit of speculation, but I do think some of these operating principles, like, will be true when they're applied to our own lives as kind of like a what to look out for. In my working hypothesis, I believe what happened to Judas was this. It was like a movement from discouragement to distraction to despair. Starting with discouragement, I just have to think that when Judas was called and he started following Jesus, it was sincere and he felt chosen and he felt seen and he felt loved by Jesus. He was fascinated by him. Jesus was giving him something that he was looking for, something that he needed. Likewise, I do bet it felt good being part of Jesus chosen group and the attention that they would get when they traveled. And we have every reason to believe that he experienced God's power at work in him as he was one of those sent out by Jesus two by two. But along the way something happened and it can be as little as him not liking the person Jesus chose to send him out with when he sent him out two by two. And this whole thing of like, hey, Jesus knew I didn't like this guy, I didn't get along with him. But still Jesus put me in this situation, this doubt that leads to discouragement of, well, like, I don't think he actually cares about me at all. Or maybe he wasn't fitting in with the rest of the 12, or he didn't get the attention, or he wasn't growing as fast, or he wasn't as powerful as the others. I don't know the specifics, I don't know what it was, but something happened. Something happened that he couldn't deal with or push through. And then he became disconnected and potentially disinterested from the person of Jesus. Like who he was and what he was doing. There's nothing in it for me anymore. And so this gave way to distraction, right, because he was there but just wasn't open. He wasn't invested. And so he had to do something with this time. And he chose distraction. Most likely he gave his time, attention and energy to managing the money purse. John chapter two. It tells us that he was the keeper of the money bag. And maybe that's what took his time and attention and became the lens through which he saw everything. Like we have attested to In John chapter 12, when Mary breaks the jar of expensive perfume to anoint the feet of Jesus. Like, he doesn't see anything beautiful. He just sees a waste of money. Like, he's distracted. And this became his reference. And I could just see this happening, that he's in a city where a bunch of healings happen and he's just not seeing it and he's not getting it. But instead he's thinking, this is awesome. I bet these people are going to be extra generous tonight. Or perhaps he's thinking, oh, we're going to eat extra well tonight, because that was a nobleman's daughter who Jesus just healed. And of course, just hours before his kiss and betrayal in the garden, he was at the Last Supper, but surely his mind was elsewhere, thinking about what

[Matt]

he was about to do and the

[Franciscan Friar]

money that he'd receive. He was disconnected from Jesus. He was disconnected from himself, and he was, like, fully distracted. And what I'm spending time here is, this is. We have to be aware of this happening. Like, it's possible for us to get

[Matt]

discouraged with Jesus for what he's doing

[Franciscan Friar]

or not doing in our lives, or to get discouraged with ourselves, or simply just to know what Jesus wants from us and to just say, no, like, I'm not going to do it.

[Matt]

I don't agree and I don't want to do it.

[Franciscan Friar]

But we'll stick around.

[Matt]

You know, maybe we'll go to Mass. We'll still call ourselves Catholic.

[Franciscan Friar]

We might say our prayers, but we're just not connected. We're not expecting anything from Jesus, and we're not willing to give anything to Jesus.

[Matt]

We're not trying to grow, be sanctified or healed.

[Franciscan Friar]

We're disappointed, disconnected, discouraged, distracted.

[Matt]

We're going to give our time and

[Franciscan Friar]

attention to other things, and we can live our whole lives like this, being around Jesus, but having no relationship with him. And of course, Judas story ultimately ends

[Matt]

with despair, as he regrets what he did.

[Franciscan Friar]

He returned the money. But in part, like what happened here was a door opening because he actually came to his senses for a moment. He was no longer just distracted. He was able for a moment to actually look at himself and what he had done and who he had become

[Matt]

and how far he had fallen. But he put a period there. He never allowed his eyes to return

[Franciscan Friar]

to Jesus, who could make him new,

[Matt]

who could restore him, who could lift him up, even here, even now. And he despaired. And he who betrayed his intimate friend betrayed his very self.

[Franciscan Friar]

My prayer is that our reflection today,

[Matt]

for both of us, you and me,

[Franciscan Friar]

it is like a field of unsettling, a field of discomfort surrounded by, like. Enclosed in a fence of hope. It's good for us to see ourselves as we are and to be reminded

[Matt]

of what we are capable of.

[Franciscan Friar]

And I think it's helpful to do a little exam and to see the

[Matt]

ways in which we are discouraged with the Lord in our walk with him,

[Franciscan Friar]

or the ways we're disconnected and distracted. But like we go to these places

[Matt]

with the Lord, with Jesus, knowing that

[Franciscan Friar]

he can heal us and he can restore us, that we can always begin again.

[Matt]

And he loves. He loves when we begin again.

[Franciscan Friar]

And that there is no depth to

[Matt]

which we have fallen or no darkness in which we could be enclosed that

[Franciscan Friar]

Jesus won't come to. To seek us out, to bring us

[Matt]

home and to make us new.

[Franciscan Friar]

So we end today not focusing on the crimes of Judas nor the sins

[Matt]

of our own doing, but the mercy of Jesus.

[Franciscan Friar]

Jesus, protect us.

[Matt]

Jesus, lead us not into temptation. Jesus, restore us. Jesus, we love you and we trust in you. Now with Mary, let us pray. In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen. Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread and forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us.

[Franciscan Friar]

And lead us not into temptation, but

[Matt]

deliver us from evil. Amen. Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee. Blessed art thou among women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus. Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners now and at the hour of our death. Amen. Hail Mary, full of grace. The Lord is with the Blessed art thou among women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus. Holy Mary, mother of God, pray for us sinners now and at the hour of our death. Amen. Hail Mary, full of grace. The Lord is with the Blessed art thou among women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus. Holy Mary, mother of God, pray for us sinners now and at the hour of our death. Amen. Hail Mary, full of grace. The Lord is with the Blessed art thou among women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus. Holy Mary, mother of God, pray for us sinners now and at the hour of our death. Amen. Hail Mary, full of grace. The Lord is with the Blessed art thou among women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus. Holy Mary, mother of God, pray for us sinners now and at the hour of our death. Amen. Hail Mary, full of grace. The Lord is with the Blessed art thou among women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus. Holy Mary, mother of God, pray for us sinners now and at the hour of our death. Amen. Hail Mary, full of grace. The Lord is with the Blessed art thou among women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus. Holy Mary, mother of God, pray for us sinners now and at the hour of our death. Amen. Hail Mary, full of grace. The Lord is with the Blessed art thou among women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus. Holy Mary, mother of God, pray for us sinners now and at the hour of our death. Amen. Hail Mary, full of grace. The Lord is with the Blessed art thou among women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus. Holy Mary, mother of God, pray for us sinners now and at the hour of our death. Amen. Hail Mary, full of grace. The Lord is with the Blessed art thou among women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus. Holy Mary, mother of God, pray for us sinners now and at the hour of our death. Amen. Glory be to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Spirit. As it was in the beginning, is now and ever shall be, world without end. Amen. In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

[Franciscan Friar]

All right, friends, thanks so much for

[Matt]

joining me and praying with me today. I look forward to continuing this journey with you again tomorrow. Poco. Poco.

[Franciscan Friar]

Friends.

[Matt]

All right.

[Franciscan Friar]

God bless y'.

[Matt]

All.