RBWords

     Tradition gives the dancing girl a name: "Salome!"  Richard Strauss' opera by that name reenacts the gruesome scene in which John the Baptist's head is brought in on a platter!  It was a tawdry end for a great man and scripture scholars quickly pass over the operatic elements to point out  the elements that foretell Jesus' fate at the hands of Pilate.  Indeed, the title of the feast used to be "The BEHEADING of John the Baptist," and now it is called the PASSION of John the Baptist.  The lesser angels of human nature conspire to get rid of a bothersome prophet.  We probably would not have to look far to find contemporary figures who regularly reenact the scene in some way.  

     The scene has given rise to some humor dating from the period right after the Second Vatican Council when liturgical "experimentation" was in full swing.  An elderly bishop comes to a parish for confirmation.  At the offertory procession the gift bearers are preceded down the aisle by a young woman in a flowing white robe dancing with a bowl of incense.  As the procession nears the altar, the elderly bishop, watching with stony face, mutters to the sweating pastor next to him, "If she asks for your head, John, she can have it!"

     The life of any prophetic figure, let alone that of Jesus and John the Baptist and some of the great Old Testament prophets, can hang by the thread of the whims of unstable political figures who feel threatened.  The prophetic vocation requires courage to speak out.  How many of us feel that courageous? AMEN