INTRODUCTION
The title of my homily is, “Off With Their Heads.”
Today - August 29th - we look at the beheading
of St. John the Baptist.
Oooooh,
Messy. Horrible.
Shakespeare in several of his plays has someone say, “Off
With Their Heads.”
Shakespeare was historically
accurate - because that’s what happened many times in British history. Many
people had their heads chopped off and stuck on bridge spikes for all to see.
Two of Henry the Eight’s six wives were beheaded: Anne Boleyn and Catherine
Howard.
So too many other people in many other places.
So too in France - especially with the French Revolution
when many were guillitoned. King Louie XVI lost his head on January 21st,
1793 and Marie Antoinette faced down at the guillotine on October 16,
1793. The number I read last night who
were killed in the French Revolution was 40,000.
Off with their heads.
Capital Punishment is the phrase for all kinds of
official killings by those in charge - for all kinds of reasons. Capital has
that Latin word “caput” in it. It’s the
word for “head”. And the slang word “Kaput” - means finished, worn out, dead,
broken, the end. It’s often pronounced
with a hand to the
neck as if a knife is cutting one’s head off.
SILENCED
The idea is to silence - put an end to what we don’t like
- especially if it’s another. Want silence: cut off the voice box - mouth and
all.
“Beheading”: how did that word evolve.
“Off with their head” and that means their mouth - their
words - that means to silence another.
Alice in Wonderland in Lewis Carrol’s famous book screams
out: “Off with their heads.”
We read it here in our scriptures - with John the Baptist
being silenced - because Herodius harbored a grudge - as Mark 6: 17-29 - tells us in the gospel for
this Mass.
Grudges - held onto bad moments and memories from another
seems to be one of the main reasons people are beheaded.
Silence - shut them up - off with their heads.
MODERN TIMES
Horror continues.
Terrorists use television and video clips of beheadings
to horrify us.
I think of the horrible silencing that took place in the
Bosnia-Herzagovina’s war - when libraries were burned - when town records of
birth certificates and property ownership were destroyed.
The Serbs and then those who reacted and retaliated in
kind knew that if you want to destroy a people - if you want to silence a
people - burn their birth certificates. Burn their
deeds. Destroy their books. Make them
non-existant.
HOW DO WE SILENCE THOSE WHO’S VOICES WE DON’T WANT
TO HEAR.
We look at our watches.
We yawn.
We cut them out of our conversations.
We cut them with stabbing comments.
We ignore them.
We destroy their capital.
CONCLUSION: THE OPPOSITE
How do we build relationships? How do we build community?
How do we receive communion with Christ and each other? It’s with our heads - our
capital - our brain center. It’s through our mouth and our words and our ears with our eyes - all
processed in our skull.
So instead of beheading - hopefully we behold each other
- will big time respect for one’s head. Hopefully we spend time seeing each
other eye to eye - and hearing each
other All part of our heads - eye to eye - talking heads.
