“I wasn’t raised religious and I don’t know anything about religion,” he said in 2004.

Saints and theologians, not to mention authors and poets, have long debated this thorny question: Why did Judas do it? To answer that we need to know something about the man himself.

There are so many mistaken notions about St. John of the Cross (1542-91) that we might do well to clarify some of them.

We might think the battle for Christmas is over words. But the struggle is waged at a far deeper level of our lives.

The days were lengthening. Daylight itself seemed brighter. The sap was rising in the trees, and with it I felt the wanderlust rising in me.

‘Even before dawn, there is a Mass being celebrated, and pilgrims are already here, kneeling before the space, running their hands over the rock, praying the Rosary and hoping for healing, as they have been doing since 1858.’