July 31, 2010
Memorial of Saint Ignatius of Loyola, priest
Now, therefore, reform your ways and your deeds; listen to the voice of the LORD your God, so that the LORD will repent of the evil with which he threatens you. As for me, I am in your hands; do with me what you think good and right. Jeremiah 26:13-14
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. Matthew 14:3-5
Piety
Suscipe by St. Ignatius of Loyola
Take, Lord, and receive all my liberty,
my memory, my understanding,
and my entire will,
All I have and call my own.
You have given all to me.
To you, Lord, I return it.
Everything is yours; do with it what you will.
Give me only your love and your grace,
that is enough for me.
Study
Jeremiah was spared. John the Baptist was not. Their fates seem to have to do with their message than with the ears upon which those messages fell.
The message from both prophets was not unlike what we read, hear and listen to throughout the Bible. Reform your ways. Turn back, O man. Change the direction in which you are looking for happiness. How did their audience hear and heed those words? Did they change or not?
Herod may have been conflicted about what he should do with John. We meet him in the beginning and he had not decided to kill John, just silence him. That inner conflict did not stop him from putting John in prison. It did not stop him from marrying his half-brother’s wife, a marriage that was prohibited by law. And in his effort to curry favor with his wife, it did not stop him from offering to grant his step-daughter any wish she wanted after performing a dance for his birthday.
Herod was preserving his comfortable life and acting out of a spirit of selfishness. He did not want the people to rebel against his temporal kingdom so he put John in prison. He did not want the priests to condemn his lifestyle so he reveled with friends and family. He did not want his wife to upset his household so he acquiesced to her wishes and the wishes expressed through her daughter. Plus, Herodias did not want to lose out on living a life in the seat of power as the king’s wife.
Where were the other priests and judges who should have joined John in speaking out against the lifestyle of the King? They probably feared for their life and compromised with silence. John did not. Like Jeremiah before him and Jesus after him, and the crowd-cloud of witnesses throughout the ages, John knew that he had to separate out the behavior demanded by the Lord and the temptations of personal and social behavior.
John threatened all that so they removed him from society and then removed him from earth. But even that did not silence the message because Jesus was already beginning his public ministry with the sorrow and loss of John and that his prayers in the deserted place would be repeated in Gethsemane.
As the universal church marks the memorial of St. Ignatius Loyola today, we realize this saint embodies the man who as a soldier was pursuing a life dedicated to serving his nation in military service. However, an injury laid him up where he spent time reading the lives of the saints ultimately emerging from the experience to pursue a different path and a different society (of Jesus).
Action
How do we hear and heed those words? Do we change our ways and stress self-LESS-ness? Or do we continue down the path to selfish pursuits?
We all have decisions to make when personal desire, what is allowed by law and what is expected of us if we are to live in friendship with Jesus collide. The message is as old as the Hebrew Bible, the apple in the tree, the rivalry of Cain and Abel, and the decisions of Joshua. What will we follow?
Cast out the gods your fathers served beyond the River and in Egypt, and serve the LORD. If it does not please you to serve the LORD, decide today whom you will serve, the gods your fathers served beyond the River or the gods of the Amorites in whose country you are dwelling. As for me and my household, we will serve the LORD. Joshua 24:14b-15
Decide today whom you will serve.
