“Merciful Father, as you have sent the Holy Spirit on Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, to write all that You wished and wanted, we pray You, send the same Holy Spirit on us, so that we may understand, appreciate Your Word, and make it our plan of life. This we ask for the merits of Your Son, Jesus Christ. Amen.”
25 …. There is another consideration we have to consider regarding the giving of the ‘sop’. To be guiven the ‘sop’ Judas must have been sitting quite close to the Master, Jesus Christ. Thinking of it, how is it that not one of the Apostles objected to Judas sitting close to the Master, in the special place, in the seat of honour? There must be one answer only to this objection. They must have got used so much to seeing Judas sitting close to the Master, more than once, so, they sort of, took it forgranted that ‘that’ was Judas normal seat, close to the Master.
Now, THIS is only a personal opinion. Admitting this teory or refusing it, will not be breaking any Catholic Belief or Dogma. BUT, could it have been like that?
During parties or feastings, the tables were arranged in a U shaped formation, leaving one side open for the servers, waiters, to go in and out whilst serving, and a central table for the food. This table arrangement was called the Triclinium. On the shorter side of the U, sat the Master, flanked by one or two seats.
The meaning one finds in a Dictionary is the following: ‘a couch running round three sides of a table, for reclining on at meals.’
One can imagine the main table where the Master sat, right in the centre, flanked by one or two seats. Now according to the plan provided, it would have been awkward, almost impossible for Judas, not sitting close to Jesus to take from Him the ‘sop’. John must have been sitting on the right-hand side of Jesus…as he laid his head on His breast (re Gospel), so, it follows Judas must have been sitting very close to Jesus…on His left-hand side, a place of honour. BUT, this is only a supposition, a hypothesis, NOT GOSPEL TRUTH….not accepting it would not mean going against any Dogma.
But we should reflect and meditate on what we read in the Gospel, and we should read and study the Life and Times of Jesus, the Culture and Customs of the Jewish people, at the time. There is a great possibility that this did happen. Well, it might not have been so relevant to the Gospel Message, to be recorded. One might even disregard this theory.
Certainly, talking about this Jewish custom of seating at table, we have to ignore all paintings of the Last Supper; including Leonardo’s. But, having said that, I must say that Leonardo’s ‘Last Supper ‘ is an all time masterpiece, the work of a genius…as I shall be explaining later on. /26
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