Today is the Passion of Saint John the Baptist and the Gospel story unfolds as Herod’s desires get the best of him and before he knows it, he is completely undone by his word. The daughter or Herodias dances and his desires damn his intentions. She requests the head of John the Baptist–on a platter no less.

The king cannot go back on his word and delivers John’s head to her who in turn gifts it to her mother. I have wondered at times of the nightmares that must have befallen this young woman. Even in the photo here, one gets a sense that a beheading is not a pleasant event. Did she look John in his lifeless eyes and wonder what it was her mother hated about this man? Was she repulsed at what she had done? Did it haunt her for the rest of her life? One action and one response is all it took to set the stage for sin. She had pleased Herod and his guests and he was wooed to insensibility. Isn’t that how we all fall? One moment of forgetfulness of Whose we are and What we believe? We too lose our head in the heat of the moment.

When was the last time your desires led you down a path you did not want to go? When did your actions have a devastating effect on someone else?

Peace,

Suzanne