HE HAD JOHN BEHEADED IN THE PRISON

Jer 26,11-16.24; Ps 68; Mt 14,1-12
4 AUGUST
When we are delivered to evil, it is evil that governs our life. Until he does not return to God, into his Law, man is like a boulder falling ever more from the top of the mountain into the abyss of sin. Let nobody say: “I am wise, intelligent, strong, able to resist. I know where to stop.”These are all the convictions of the devil, offered gratuitously so that one remains in sin and in the transgression of the Law. Without going to the distant past to look for some good examples we can read only one passage from the Parable of the younger son.

Then he said, “A man had two sons, and the younger son said to his father, ‘Father, give me the share of your estate that should come to me.’ So the father divided the property between them. After a few days, the younger son collected all his belongings and set off to a distant country where he squandered his inheritance on a life of dissipation. When he had freely spent everything, a severe famine struck that country, and he found himself in dire need. So he hired himself out to one of the local citizens who sent him to his farm to tend the swine. And he longed to eat his fill of the pods on which the swine fed, but nobody gave him any. Coming to his senses he thought, ‘How many of my father’s hired workers have more than enough food to eat, but here am I, dying from hunger. I shall get up and go to my father and I shall say to him, “Father, I have sinned against heaven and against you. I no longer deserve to be called your son; treat me as you would treat one of your hired workers.”‘ So he got up and went back to his father (Lk 15,11-20).

This man touches the bottom of the abyss when he reaches a condition inferior to that of pigs, unclean animals by the Jews. Food was given to the impure animal. He worked without even being paid. Not even a carob he could take. But history always goes this way. Whoever gets out of the grace of God, begins but does not know where he will end up. He does not even know if he will return with God tomorrow. For this reason he must watch over and stay awake. Paying attention. For this reason one must never fall into the first sin.

Herod takes his brother Philip’s wife with him. In perfidy she has exceeded Gezabele, a woman devoted to doing evil. This woman wants the death of John the Baptist. Herod resists. She waits for the right moment. Salome, her daughter, dances in the presence of the king. The king falls in love with her dance and promises with oath that he would have given her anything. Even half of his kingdom. The daughter asks her mother, who promptly answers: “The head of John the Baptist”. Before Herod was an adulterer. Now he has become a murderer and moreover of a prophet of the living God. He killed a man of God, an innocent man, for a stupid, foolish, senseless oath.

At that time Herod the tetrarch heard of the reputation of Jesus and said to his servants, “This man is John the Baptist. He has been raised from the dead; that is why mighty powers are at work in him.” Now Herod had arrested John, bound (him), and put him in prison on account of Herodias, the wife of his brother Philip, for John had said to him, “It is not lawful for you to have her.” Although he wanted to kill him, he feared the people, for they regarded him as a prophet. But at a birthday celebration for Herod, the daughter of Herodias performed a dance before the guests and delighted Herod so much that he swore to give her whatever she might ask for. Prompted by her mother, she said, “Give me here on a platter the head of John the Baptist.” The king was distressed, but because of his oaths and the guests who were present, he ordered that it be given, and he had John beheaded in the prison. His head was brought in on a platter and given to the girl, who took it to her mother. His disciples came and took away the corpse and buried him; and they went and told Jesus.

Another truth must reign in our hearts. Satan knows how to harmonize the forces of sin by directing them all towards the same end. In fact, the killing of John the Baptist is the fruit of Satan’s perfect strategy. In one day three of his forces are in the same place. What better occasion! Every force puts into might its power of sin and for John the Baptist the sentence of death is decreed.

Mother of God, Angels and Saints ensure that we are never an evil force of Satan’s strategy.