Bible
Study: Sirach 47, 2 to 11. And Mark 6,
14 to 29.
Our
reflections since the beginning of this week have been evolving around certain bitter
truths; they are pure facts but bitter in the sense that we do not like to hear
them. And when we do, we either look inwards or we turn around to fight and if
possible kill the mouth saying them to us. In today’s readings, we see the
height of this reality.
If you
recall, in our first reading on Sunday, we hear God saying to the prophet
Jeremiah that “people would fight hard against him but he must never be
dismayed by them.” Why? As long as Jeremiah was going to speak nothing but
truth, he would have to dance to the tune as well. John the Baptist simple told
Herod the truth: “It is not right for you to take your brother’s wife. Adultery
is a sin.” And for saying this, Herod had him arrested and put in prison.
Centuries
may have passed, technologies have evolved but human nature has not changed a
single bit. Adultery, Fornication and all other sexual acts outside the context
of marriage are still sins. Like Herod and Herodias, we humans always love to
take the difficult path of limping and hiding in DARKNESS rather than the
easier path of simply walking in the light.
We know
the truth but we don’t like to hear it. By asking for the head of John the
Baptist, Herodias was simply doing what we do often and often again. Instead of
doing the right thing, we are always fascinated by evil, we love forbidden
things and at the same times, we go about doing everything to suppress the
truth. We expend all our energies trying to cover our tracks, trying to seal
people’s lips up. Should any one dare tell us the truth, we are ready to kill.
We either find a way of making the person quiet or we go about defaming the
person’s character so that what he says will no longer hold water.
Of course
no one is perfect so it is always easy to find something bad about the person
and we feel that by destroying his character, we are getting justice for
ourselves. Instead of looking inwards, we end up fighting the wrong war. The
correct war ought to be waged against our very selves, our love for sin, our
inclination to evil, our desire for things out of bounds. By fighting those who
tell us the truth, we only waste our time and even give more publicity to the
truth. There are many who never knew Herod married his brother’s wife until
they heard about how a little girl carried somebody’s head on a dish.
Why is it
that we love our reputation so much, we like to project ourselves as good and
we love people praising us yet we still condescended to evil? Why is it that we
hate to hear anything bad said about us even when we know that it is true? Why
do we foolishly think we can EAT OUR CAKE AND HAVE IT by going after people who
are aware of, or dare to mention our evil deeds?
Even if we
succeed at silencing the people who tell us the truth, can we ever silence the
truth itself? Eventually, Herod gave the head of John the Baptist to the little
girl. Did the head of John the Baptist regularise the marriage? Did it remove
adultery from the list of sins? What is the point trying to cover your tracks?
Why not leave sin instead? Even if we spend our whole lives killing everybody
just to destroy evidence of our evil deeds, truth itself never dies and it MUST
surely find a way of coming out.
Conscience
is an open wound, a wound for which there is no cure. There may be no one to
tell us or remind us of the truth but that does not make the truth cease from
existing. In fact, our mere knowledge of the truth will continue to hunt us
until we ourselves use our mouth to say that which we fought hard to prevent
other mouths from saying. When Herod heard of the fame of Jesus, he was
convinced that John the Baptist had risen from the dead. His conscience
immediately told him that he only killed a voice, he did not kill the truth.
Our first
reading this morning chronicles the life of David. It is such a true picture of
his life because it mentions his sinful side. There is no way anyone can talk
about David without reference to his sins. Dear friends, isn’t it better to
live above sins than to worry about building a reputation? If spend our whole
lives trying to hide our deeds by shutting the lips of people, are we going to
come back after death to undo our sins? Or we going to continue killing people
after our death to prevent the truth from being told?
Finally,
today we celebrate a woman who stood by the truth with her very body by
refusing to give away her virginity. She lived in a manner that proved that her
body belonged to no one other than God. For her refusal to marry, she suffered
a very brutal persecution but she never gave up, she did not fight anybody or
try to shut people’s lips after doing evil. Today her reputation lives forever.
Let us
Pray:
Lord
Jesus, give me the grace to stand for and live by the truth. Teach me to be
good rather than try to hide my sins under the shadow of reputation. Amen.
St.
Agatha, Pray for Us.
God bless you. Good morning. Be Happy. Live Positive. Have Faith. It is
well with you.
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