Gospel (Except USA)Matthew 14:1-12The beheading of John the Baptist. Herod the tetrarch heard about the reputation of Jesus, and said to his court, ‘This is John the Baptist himself; he has risen from the dead, and that is why miraculous powers are at work in him.’Now it was Herod who had arrested John, chained him up and put him in prison because of Herodias, his brother Philip’s wife. For John had told him, ‘It is against the Law for you to have her.’ He had wanted to kill him but was afraid of the people, who regarded John as a prophet. Then, during the celebrations for Herod’s birthday, the daughter of Herodias danced before the company, and so delighted Herod that he promised on oath to give her anything she asked. Prompted by her mother she said, ‘Give me John the Baptist’s head, here, on a dish.’ The king was distressed but, thinking of the oaths he had sworn and of his guests, he ordered it to be given her, and sent and had John beheaded in the prison. The head was brought in on a dish and given to the girl, who took it to her mother. John’s disciples came and took the body and buried it; then they went off to tell Jesus. Gospel (USA)Matthew 14:1-12Herod had John beheaded; John’s disciples came and told Jesus. 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. (i) Saturday, Seventeenth Week in Ordinary Time In today’s first reading, the prophet Jeremiah is almost put to death because he spoke God’s word to the people, a word they did not want to hear because it required them to change their ways. In today’s gospel reading, John the Baptist, another prophet, is put to death because he spoke God’s word to Herod, the tetrarch of Galilee, a word he didn’t want to hear, because it would have required him to change his ways. Both readings show that God’s ways are often in conflict with human ways. What God asks of us can sometimes be heard as too demanding from a human point of view. Jesus was understood as a prophet in his lifetime. Indeed, in today’s gospel reading Herod thought that Jesus was the prophet John the Baptist come back to life. Like the prophets before him, Jesus’ proclamation of God’s word was often heard by others as too demanding, too disturbing, and, as a result, he suffered the same fate as many of the prophets before him. Like John the Baptist, Jesus too was executed. Yet, Jesus was more than a prophet who proclaimed God’s word. He was the word of God incarnate. He could speak God’s word in a fuller way than any prophet before him, including John the Baptist. Sometimes we will hear Jesus’ word as demanding and disturbing; he can set the bar very high indeed. At other times, we will hear Jesus’ word as reassuring and comforting; he reveals God to be merciful and patient with human weakness. Behind every word Jesus spoke, both the demanding and the consoling words, stands the love of God for the world. All of Jesus’ words are words of love and life; they reveal God’s loving desire that we would have life and have it to the full. We are called to welcome every word Jesus speaks with the same love with which they have been spoken. And/Or (ii) Saturday, Seventeenth Week in Ordinary Time We have a lovely mosaic in our church of John the Baptist baptizing Jesus. A few years after that event, both of them would end up being put to death by the power of Rome. Jesus was crucified at the orders of Pontius Pilate, the Roman governor in Judea at the time, and John the Baptist was beheaded by Herod Antipas, a local ruler who ruled Galilee on behalf of Rome. Jesus more than likely saw his own destiny reflected in what happened to John. John was executed because he had challenged Herod for acting against the Jewish Law by marrying his brother Philip’s wife. John was a courageous witness to the values proclaimed by God’s word. In the story we have just heard, he stands out as a beacon of light compared to all the other characters, that peculiar unholy Trinity of Herod, Herodias, his wife, and her daughter. Between them they managed to eliminate what the gospel reading refers to as a ‘good and holy man’, just as Jesus, the ultimate ‘good and holy man’, would be eliminated by another coalition of darkness. It seems to be in the nature of light that it often finds itself shining in darkness. The light of the Lord’s presence shines in our own darkness, in the dark and difficulty experiences of life. John the Baptist is a great inspiration to us to allow the light of our faith shine, the light of the gospel, even when it is not popular or convenient to do so. We try to keep the light we have received in baptism shining brightly, regardless of the circ*mstances in which we might find ourselves. And/Or (iii) Saturday, Seventeenth Week in Ordinary Time We have become increasingly aware in recent years of those who are being persecuted because of their faith, especially their faith in Jesus. Many have been forced to flee their homes simply because they have refused to deny their faith in Jesus. Many have been put to death because of their faith. There are as many, if not more, Christian martyrs today as there have ever been in human history. We consider Stephen to be the first Christian martyr. Strictly speaking, John the Baptist is not considered a Christian martyr because he was the one who came just before Jesus to prepare the way for him. Yet, he is a martyr for Jesus in everything but name. It was because of his prophetic work of proclaiming God’s will, as a preparation for Jesus, that he was put to death by Herod. He was totally dedicated to proclaiming and doing God’s will, even when that meant incurring the wrath of the powerful, like Herodias, Herod’s wife. He paid with his life for his integrity, his faithfulness to his prophetic calling. John the Baptist remains an inspiration for us today. He encourages us to be courageous in our witness to our faith. Jesus said of John the Baptist that he was not a ‘reed shaken by the wind’. He didn’t simply go in the direction of whatever wind was blowing the strongest. He was made of sterner stuff. We need some of that strength of spirit of John the Baptist today, because our witness to the values of Jesus and his gospel will often mean standing firm against the prevailing winds of the time. And/Or (iv) Saturday, Seventeenth Week in Ordinary Time Two men and two women feature in this morning’s gospel reading, John the Baptist and Herod, and Herodias and her daughter. Of the two men, Herod was a man of power and authority, whereas John was powerless; Herod had the freedom of an autocrat to do whatever he liked, whereas John had no freedom, being locked up in prison. Yet, at another level, John the Baptist had an authority and freedom that Herod did not have. John had a moral authority that Herod lacked, and he had the freedom to speak out of his convictions, whereas Herod lacked the freedom of his convictions; he had John beheaded against his better judgement. You could say that John had the authority of the person who was completely open to God’s Spirit and that he had the spiritual freedom of the children of God. The gospels suggest that this is the only authority and the only freedom worth having, and very often it is to be found in people who might appear on the surface to have very little freedom or authority. The most authoritative and the freest person of all was Jesus, because he was full of the Spirit, and he was at his most authoritative and his freest at the very moment when he appeared to have no authority or freedom, as he hung from the cross. The more our lives are in tune with the movements of God’s Spirit, the Holy Spirit, the more we will share in the Lord’s own authority and freedom, and the more we will begin to taste here and now that glorious freedom of the children of God that awaits us in the next life. And/Or (v) Saturday, Seventeenth Week in Ordinary Time In this morning’s gospel reading we have an example of that abuse of power with which history is peppered. Herod Antipas was ruler in Galilee at the time of Jesus. He was ultimately subject to the Emperor in Rome and was Rome puppet’s king. He could use his power as he wished, provided it did not bring him into conflict with Rome. In today’s gospel reading he used his power to execute an innocent man. People who abuse their power in this way lose their authority. John the Baptist has no power in this scene; he is a prisoner of Herod Antipas. Yet, he has great authority, a moral authority that is rooted in his relationship with God. That gave him the freedom to confront a man of power like Herod for breaking the Jewish law. Because of that exercise of moral authority, he was put in prison and eventually executed. John the Baptist foreshadows Jesus. As Jesus hung from the cross he too had no power. As Paul says, ‘he was crucified in weakness’. Yet, at that moment he had great authority, the authority of a life of tremendous integrity and goodness, the authority, ultimately, of the faithful Son of God, as the centurion recognized. Even if we have little or no power, we can be people of authority in the gospel sense. Like John the Baptist we are called to be people of the word, who hear the word of the Lord and allow it to shape our values, our attitudes, our whole lives. And/Or (vi) Saturday, Seventeenth Week in Ordinary Time We can all make rash promises, promises we have very little chance of ever fulfilling. In this morning’s gospel reading, Herod Antipas, the ruler of Galilee, made a rash promise to his step daughter. ‘He promised on oath to give her anything she asked’. When, prompted by her mother, Herodias, she asked for the head of John the Baptist on a platter, Herod could not go back on his promise without losing face. He was not prepared to lose face, even though that meant going against his better instincts. In some distress he ordered the guards to carry out the request of his step daughter. Herod comes across as a man who did not have the courage of his convictions, when his own honour in the eyes of others was at stake. In contrast, the man he had executed, John the Baptist, had the courage of his convictions. He challenged Herod’s marriage to the wife of his brother because it was against the Jewish Law. John the Baptist died for his convictions. He foreshadowed Jesus who also died for his convictions; he was put to death because he proclaimed God’s vision for humanity. Both John and Jesus inspire us to be courageous in the living of our faith, in our bearing witness to the values of the gospel. It can be tempting to live up to other people’s expectations, which is what Herod did. Yet, our calling is to live in accordance with God’s expectations, even when that means the way of the cross. Such a way is ultimately the way to true and lasting life. And/Or (vii) Saturday, Seventeenth Week in Ordinary Time At the beginning of Matthew’s gospel, King Herod the Great is responsible for the murder of innocent children, in an effort to kill the infant king of the Jews, Jesus. In this morning’s gospel reading, Herod the Great’s son, Herod Antipas, the tetrarch of Galilee, is responsible for the death of John the Baptist. Like Jesus, John the Baptist interpreted God’s will for people’s lives; he interpreted God’s Law for others, regardless of their background or state in life. God’s will had to be proclaimed to all, including the most powerful in the land, people like Herod Antipas and his wife Herodias. Proclaiming God’s will to the powerful was risky, if it conflicted with their own will. John the Baptist was imprisoned by Herod Antipas and eventually beheaded because John’s proclamation of God’s will challenged the lifestyle of Herod and his wife. Jesus would go on to make the same discovery. His fuller proclamation of God’s will for our lives was a challenge to the religious and political leaders of his time and, as a result, he was crucified. As well as being a consoling word, the gospel also has a sharp edge to it. It confronts us when we are not living as God intends us to live. When the gospel leaves us feeling uncomfortable, rather than rejecting it, as many of Jesus’ and John’s contemporaries did, we need to sit with it and allow it to speak to our heart. The path it puts before us may go against the grain at times, but, ultimately, it is the path that leads to life, both in this world and in the next. And/Or (viii) Saturday, Seventeenth Week in Ordinary Time In this morning’s first reading, Jeremiah warns the people of Jerusalem that if they put him to death they will be bringing innocent blood on themselves, on the city and its citizens. The people heeded Jeremiah’s warning, declaring, ‘this man does not deserve to die’. In the gospel reading, Herod Antipas has no qualms about bringing innocent blood down on himself. He had John the Baptist arrested and imprisoned because John’s preaching was not to his liking and, in particular, was not to the liking of his wife Herodias. During the celebrations for Herod’s birthday, the daughter of Herodias from a previous marriage so beguiled Herod that he made a rash promise to her in public. She could have anything she asked. When, at her mother’s prompting, she asked for the head of John the Baptist on a dish, Herod felt obliged to honour his public promise. Yet, the gospel reading says that it distressed Herod to grant her request. The gospels suggest that there was something about John that appealed to Herod’s better nature. He heard some call in John’s preaching. However, he silenced that call rather than bring down dishonour on himself by refusing to keep his publicly made promise. His need to protect his honour led him to shed innocent blood. The dilemma of Herod is a very human one. The Lord calls out to what is best in us but we don’t always allow ourselves to hear his call or respond to it. Other more self-regarding concerns can have greater influence over us, such as the concern to protect our honour, how we appear to others. Yet, the Lord’s call never goes away. The Lord never gives up on our response even though we may seem deaf to it. The Lord keeps pursuing us in his love, appealing to what is deepest and best in us. And/Or (ix) Saturday, Seventeenth Week in Ordinary Time Herod Antipas, the tetrarch of Galilee, had married the wife of his brother Philip. John the Baptist confronted Herod Antipas for marrying in contravention of the Jewish Law, much to the annoyance of Herod and to the even greater annoyance of his wife, Herodias. For his faithful proclamation of the Jewish Law, even to the mighty and powerful, John the Baptist was imprisoned and, eventually, beheaded on Herod’s orders, as we hear in today’s gospel reading. At the end of the gospel reading we are told that when the disciples of John the Baptist had buried their master, they went off to tell Jesus. When Jesus heard this news, he must have had a premonition of his own fate. Jesus proclaimed an even more radical version of God’s will than John the Baptist. He was already in the process of making enemies among the powerful in the land. As John the Baptist was executed in Galilee by a client king of Rome, Herod Antipas, Jesus would be executed in Jerusalem by the governor of Rome. The gospel story as a whole and today’s gospel reading especially indicates that the proclamation of God’s word is not always well received, especially when it challenges our self-centredness, our desire to protect ourselves and all we are attached to. It is in the nature of the Lord’s word that it will both comfort us and unsettle us. It will both build up and tear down. We need to keep holding ourselves open to both sides of the Lord’s word. And/Or (x) Saturday, Seventeenth Week in Ordinary Time The story in today’s gospel reading is one of the darker stories in the gospels. The story of the passion and death of John the Baptist anticipates, in many ways, the story of the passion and death of Jesus. Both John and Jesus were executed by agents of Rome because they proclaimed God’s word to powerful people. John proclaimed God’s word as found in the Jewish Law. Jesus proclaimed God’s word in a new way, which was in continuity with the Jewish Law but went beyond it. Powerful people found God’s word as proclaimed by John and Jesus so disturbing that they wanted the preachers of that word put to death. Jeremiah’s proclamation of God’s word in today’s first reading met with a similarly negative response. Some of the worst instincts of human nature are to be found in the story in today’s gospel reading. Herod, his wife, Herodias, and their daughter, traditionally named as Salome, have been described as a kind of unholy trinity. Between them they conspired to put a holy man of God to death. Even in situations where the worst instincts of human nature are to the fore, there is often to be found some redeeming feature. The redeeming feature in today’s story is the person of John the Baptist himself. He is the light that shines in this very dark scene. His faithfulness to the Lord’s calling shines brightly against the dark backdrop of the worst instincts of human nature displayed by Herod Antipas, his wife and their daughter. John did not allow his goodness to be overcome by evil. The same is true, to an even greater extent, of Jesus. John and Jesus did not allow the light of God’s loving presence in their lives to be dimmed by the darkness in the lives of others. That is our calling too, as followers of the risen Lord. We are to allow the light of God’s loving presence to shine through us, regardless of the situation in which we find ourselves. And/Or (xi) Saturday, Seventeenth Week in Ordinary Time Today’s gospel reading is one of the more violent stories in the gospels. An innocent and good man, John the Baptist, is unjustly executed by a ruler who had wanted to kill John but had refrained from doing so because of his reputation among the people but who eventually ordered John’s execution to uphold his honour, having sworn on oath to give his stepdaughter anything she wanted. John’s only crime in the eyes of Herod and his wife was to proclaim God’s word as revealed in the Jewish Law. What happens to John foreshadows what would happen to Jesus. As John was executed by Herod under pressure from his wife, Jesus was executed by Pilate under pressure from the religious leaders. Jesus’ only crime was to proclaim God’s word, the coming of God’s kingdom, to announce that God’s hospitable love was embracing all of humanity, and not just a chosen few. John and Jesus were innocent victims of self-serving power. There have been many such innocent victims throughout history. At some moments of our lives, we may have been one of those innocent victims of the self-serving actions of others and, if we are completely, we may also at times our own less than worthy motives may have helped to create innocent victims. Of the two great prophets, John and Jesus, it is above all Jesus who shows us that the suffering we endure at the hands of others can be redeemed by love and forgiveness. As he suffered on the cross, his love for humanity was at its most selfless and life-giving, and his capacity to forgive, to share God’s forgiveness was at its most powerful. His Spirit at work in our lives can empower us to be as loving and forgiving as he was, when we find ourselves on the cross because of the attitudes and actions of others. When that happens the mystery of the cross, the mystery of God’s love which embraces all, becomes tangible present in our time and place through us. And/Or (xii) Saturday, Seventeenth Week in Ordinary Time Today’s first reading from the Book of Leviticus ends with the call, ‘Let none of you wrong his neighbour, but fear your God’. ‘Fear’ there is to be understood as reverence for God. We show our reverence for God by respecting our neighbour, by treating them fairly and justly. In the gospel reading, Herod shows no respect for John the Baptist, doing him great wrong, treating him unjustly. Herod had thrown John into prison, at the insistence of his wife Herodias, because he had told Herod it was against the Jewish Law to marry her. During a celebration of Herod’s birthday, as a result of a rash promise he made to his stepdaughter, he felt pressured by his wife and his stepdaughter to have John the Baptist beheaded. Herod, Herodias and her daughter are often referred to as an unholy trinity in this story. One person can do great evil but the greater evils often spring from several people working together. All three co-operated in John’s death, thereby showing that they had no fear of God, no reverence for God, no respect for God’s prophet. The way Herod, Herodias and her daughter worked together to bring about a great wrong is the antithesis of our calling to work together to bring about a great good. The Lord calls us to work together in the service of the coming of the kingdom of God. The Lord wants to work through each one of us individually, but he can work much more powerfully through us as a community of faith and love. We have each been gifted by the Spirit in a different way. It is when we work together in the Spirit, that the Lord can work most effectively to overcome the forces of evil in our world that are so clearly on display in today’s gospel reading.3rd August >> Fr. Martin's Reflections / Homilies on Today's Mass Readings for Saturday, Seventeenth Week in Ordinary Time (Inc. Matthew 14:1-12): ‘John’s disciples came and took his body and buried it’ .
Saturday, Seventeenth Week in Ordinary Time
Reflections (12)
Fr. Martin Hogan.
See Also
July 29- Aug 3rd weekday homilies23rd July >> Fr. Martin's Reflections / Homilies on Today's Mass Readings for17th Sunday Year B Homily Sermon17th July >> Fr. Martin's Reflections / Homilies on Today's Mass Readings for Wednesday, Fifteenth Week in Ordinary Time (Inc. Matthew 11:25-27) ‘No one knows the Father except the Son’.