Ask of me whatever you wish and I will grant it to you

Jer 1,17-19; Ps 70; Mk 6,17-29
29 AUGUST

Sin is nourished with sin, vice with vice, concupiscence with concupiscence, injustice with injustice and disobedience with disobedience. Everyone is obliged to ensure that sin never enters the heart. Once it entered it requires another sin. Either it is removed from the heart with immediate repentance, conversion and request for forgiveness, or the misdeeds that it makes us commit are innumerable. They become bigger every day. The people of the Hebrews fell into idolatry. From idolatry it passed to great immorality. David committed a sin of adultery and he immediately became a multiple murderer. To hide his sin he had the husband of the adulterous woman and many others, killed.

So all the people took off their earrings and brought them to Aaron, who accepted their offering, and fashioning this gold with a graving tool, made a molten calf. Then they cried out, “This is your God, O Israel, who brought you out of the land of Egypt.” On seeing this, Aaron built an altar before the calf and proclaimed, “Tomorrow is a feast of the Lord.” Early the next day the people offered holocausts and brought peace offerings. Then they sat down to eat and drink, and rose up to revel (Ex 32,3-6). The next morning David wrote a letter to Joab which he sent by Uriah. In it he directed: “Place Uriah up front, where the fighting is fierce. Then pull back and leave him to be struck down dead.” So while Joab was besieging the city, he assigned Uriah to a place where he knew the defenders were strong. When the men of the city made a sortie against Joab, some officers of David’s army fell, and among them Uriah the Hittite died (2Sam 11,14-17).

Herod fell into the sin of concubinage. Herodias was his brother’s wife. Immediately afterwards he fell into the sin of lustful desire. Because of it he took a foolish and thoughtless oath. This oath forced him, through another sin of vainglory, to be a murderer. The beheading of John the Baptist is not an isolated sin. Instead, it is the fruit of a sequence of sins, everyone more serious than the former. This truth must teach us that if we do not remove the first sin, a second one will follow it, then a third and a fourth. Then, in the end it is the irreparable. By passing more and more the limit of sin one can reach the sin against the Holy Spirit and it is eternal death already while one is alive. Sin over sin!

Herod was the one who had John arrested and bound in prison on account of Herodias, the wife of his brother Philip, whom he had married. John had said to Herod, “It is not lawful for you to have your brother’s wife.” Herodias harboured a grudge against him and wanted to kill him but was unable to do so. Herod feared John, knowing him to be a righteous and holy man, and kept him in custody. When he heard him speak he was very much perplexed, yet he liked to listen to him. She had an opportunity one day when Herod, on his birthday, gave a banquet for his courtiers, his military officers, and the leading men of Galilee. Herodias’s own daughter came in and performed a dance that delighted Herod and his guests. The king said to the girl, “Ask of me whatever you wish and I will grant it to you.” He even swore (many things) to her, “I will grant you whatever you ask of me, even to half of my kingdom.” She went out and said to her mother, “What shall I ask for?” She replied, “The head of John the Baptist.” The girl hurried back to the king’s presence and made her request, “I want you to give me at once on a platter the head of John the Baptist.” The king was deeply distressed, but because of his oaths and the guests he did not wish to break his word to her. So he promptly dispatched an executioner with orders to bring back his head. He went off and beheaded him in the prison. He brought in the head on a platter and gave it to the girl. The girl in turn gave it to her mother. When his disciples heard about it, they came and took his body and laid it in a tomb.

The same truth applies to falsehood. Falsehood also feeds on falsehoods. Today we remove a truth from the Gospel and replace it with a falsehood, tomorrow another and yet another one. It comes to the point of depriving the Gospel of every truth. Today God, Christ Jesus, the Holy Spirit, the Church, the sacraments and everything is deprived of its truth. This is the unstoppable process of falsehood. Evil and falsehoods are like yeast. Once they enter the heart, even in a very small part, they conquer it completely. Who wants to stay in the light he is asked to free himself from all darkness today, tomorrow and always.

Mother of God, Angels and Saints do not allow sin to enter the heart of the Christian.