23 My Monologues with the King Herod
Oh, Mighty King Herod,
When the Blessed Babe of Bethlehem was born you must have already crossed seventy and must have been a king for more than thirty years, right?
Besides the enormous landed property and wealth your father had amassed, on your own, you had acquired much wealth, power, position, and pelf.
Your unbounded ambition, your astute political wheelings and dealings along with your seemingly untiring hard work helped you to become the governor of Galilee at the age of twenty five!
No small an achievement to be sneezed at, right?
Oh, Mighty King Herod,
Through your sheer military and political skills, you became the King of Jews at the age of thirty seven.
You did expand and enlarge the territory of your kingdom more than twice the size of Kingdom of Judah which you had inherited.
You worked hard to usher in relative peace and prosperity thought out your Kingdom.
You built a safe sea-port at Caesarea.
You erected mighty fortresses like Fort Masada, Antonia Fortress in Jerusalem to control the crowd, to put down possible rebellions, and to expel the enemies who may dare to attack.
You constructed magnificent palaces all across your land.
You patronized sports and became the president of the Olympic Games!
You did rebuild the Temple in Jerusalem, enlarged it, beautified it beyond compare and widened it's premises into an area of about 35 acres of land.
Oh, Mighty King Herod,
You were a war veteran and had a very powerful, an ever ready ruthless army at your command assisted by the Romans.
Hardly was there any king or ruler around your neighborhood who could neither pose a threat nor throw a challenge to your royal throne and to your position, right?
Your marriage alliances with a number of neighboring kingdoms and royal families made sure that they would not rise up against you.
Besides, as long as, you kept the Caesars of Rome in good humor which you had been doing so successfully and tactfully, you didn't have to worry about any threat to your throne.
You claimed to be the Patron of the pagans and the Protector of the Jews.
In every way, you made your throne secure and your life luxurious.
You were a success story, indeed!
Oh, Mighty King Herod,
despite all these marvellous achievements:
How could you ever feel challenged by a newborn Babe?
How could you, ever feel threatened by a Babe born in nearby Bethlehem?
Oh, Mighty King Herod,
Isn't it ironic that a mighty king as yourself was worried about a newborn weakling Babe, born somewhere in Bethlehem?
How could you ever think of this newborn Babe as a threat?
It would have taken at least a quarter of a century for the newborn Babe even to appear as a challenge to you, right?
There was no rhyme or reason for your fear!
It was unfounded, unreal, and exaggerated!
Oh, Mighty King Herod,
The Babe was neither born into a family of powerful warlord chieftain as you did.
Nor was the Babe born into a rival royal ruling class.
Unlike your father Antipater who was a self made Idumean war lord chieftain, the newborn Babe had no such military family background.
Yet, how could you be so dead scared of the newborn Babe of Bethlehem?
Oh, Mighty King Herod,
Did you have any inkling in your innermost recesses of your being of anything extraordinary about the Babe of Bethlehem,
so as to scare you into panic?
Did you feel any vibes about some sort of a foreboding mysteriousness about the newborn Babe?
Did you fantasize at least for a fraction of a second whether the newborn Babe could be some sort of a divine being?
Were you obsessed with an apparent threat by the newborn Babe?
Or, were you just paranoid?
Oh, Mighty King Herod,
Whatever might have been the reasons for your obsession with an imaginary threat, you took it real serious, or else you would never ever have ordered the wild, violent, and spine chilling, macabre massacre of those innocent babies in and around Bethlehem, right?
Oh, Mighty King Herod,
How could you bring yourself to perpetrate such a gruesome act of gross Infanticide?
Did you have a morbid mind and a monstrous will to maximize your sadistic pleasure of the worst kind?
It seems you were constantly haunted by unfounded fear,weren't you?
Remember, how exaggerated was your suspicions of your wife, Marimne, plotting against you and doubting her sincerity and allegiance to you?
Though you had professed several times your love for her, you had no qualms of conscience to plot and have her killed,right?
Remember, how gruesomely you murdered her after having made love to her and after having sex with her on the previous night?
And then you wept in depression!
Pathetic Indeed! Sick you are!
Oh, Mighty King Herod,
Remember, years ago, as a young adventurous king you put away Doris, your first wife, as you desired to have Mariamne, the beautiful Hasmonean princess, never ever you did imagine that someday you would be mercilessly murdering her!
How evil can be the schemings of our human mind!
How paranoid you must have been to have murdered two your sons born of her, her own mother, i,e, your mother-in-law, and her grand father!
Oh, Mighty King Herod,
You have had as many as ten wives and fourteen children.
And at least two of your wives and two of your sons had met with calculated and cold blooded murder, didn't they?
Your paranoid and the exaggerated threat to yourself appeared so real to you, Right?
All that mattered to you was your own,
Egocentric Ego, right?
Sad Indeed!
Oh, Mighty King Herod,
On the one hand, you were a dazzling success in terms of military conquests, territorial expansion, enlarging and beautifying the Temple, constructing Palaces, and putting up Fortresses.
Your unbounded ambition and sheer force of your will power helped you to accomplish the above successful achievements.
Oh, Mighty King Herod,
On the other hand your family life and personal relationships were marred by jealousy, envy, intrigues, suspicion, and paranoia, which ended up in heinous crimes of torture, murder, unjust imprisonment and banishment.
Oh, Mighty King Herod,
You are a paradox!
You are an enigma!
You are a riddle!
So am I !
Well, many a times, that's very true of Me too!
Oh, Mighty King Herod,
The more senior a king you became the less saner a person you ended up to be, right?
As the Babe of Bethlehem was born,
you, Oh, the Mighty King were dying, dying of various diseases of both body and mind, right?
As the New Light of Life was being lit by the Babe,
the Flame of death, destruction and corruption fanned by you was being put out, right?
Oh, Mighty King Herod,
As they say, the last phase of your life was plagued by sickness of all sorts.
You were afflicted with rheumatoid arthritis, arteriosclerosis, as well as venereal diseases.
Besides:
You were mentally confused,
You were paranoid with unfounded fears,
You had bouts of depression,
You had frequent flaring up of rage.
You became a bitter lonely loony man!
You even attempted to commit suicide!
Oh, Mighty King Herod,
Your last days were spent in Herodium near Bethlehem, a place you had prepared in advance.The top crest of a hill was chopped off and excavated inside and took the mud out from the center and then built inside a fortified Palace and a tomb for you.
Oh, Mighty King Herod,
As they say, one of the main causes of your delusion and paranoia was your almost innate feeling of being an inferior Jew, or a half Jew at best.
You were constantly aware of the fact that your father was never a born Jew, but a converted Idumean Jew! Once upon a time, the neighboring Idumeans were forcefully converted into Judaism.
So the upper class Jews as well as the priestly classes neither accepted you as a pure bred nor respected you.
On the contrary, they held you in contempt.
They had total a disregard for you and only pretended to be respectful towards you as they were scared of you.
Oh, Mighty King Herod,
The validation you craved for and the recognition you sought after, never came by! You knew fully well that they were waiting to celebrate your death.
To avoid that, around seventy religious leaders who were opposed you, had been imprisoned and were to be executed the moment you die. The Jews would rather mourn the massacre of these elderly religious men rather than celebrate your death!
Strange indeed!
Oh, boy, if these records were correct,
Oh, Mighty King Herod, your sick mind saw to it that besides slaughtering the Innocent Infants, the orthodox elders and priests were also massacred by your evil designs!
Sad Indeed!
Oh, Mighty King Herod,
I have been very harsh in tearing you apart and exposing the inborn contradictions in you.
I keep on asking myself as to why does the mere thought of you ignite so much of repulsive and revulsive feelings in Me?
Oh, Mighty King Herod,
I do identify a Miniature, Midget version of a Mighty King Herod very much alive in Me!
He acts up often and plays havoc in my life.
And at times he gets out of my control causing much harm to myself and to many others around Me!
Oh, Blessed Babe of Bethlehem,
Help me to be constantly aware of the presence of:
A Miniature Midget of a Mighty Herod in Me!
In a sense:
I have been often an assassin like King Herod.
There have been times when I engaged myself
in the cruel Acts of Character Assassinations!
I have done it:
as a sibling,
as a student,
as a seminarian,
as a young priest,
and I continue doing it even as a senior priest!
I have cut many of my companions, co-workers, confreres, seniors, superiors, and many others,
I have cut them to seize
with Character Assassinations!
just because I saw in them either an unreal or of an exaggerated threat to my Selfish Ego!
In hindsight, I have had even some of my so called accomplishments and achievements, be it academic or pastoral, I have done it just to give a boost to my Ego and get validation and recognition for my Ego!
I am afraid, I have been carrying
a version of a 'Herod the Small' in me!
Oh, Blessed Babe of Bethlehem,
I want to admit and acknowledge the presence of the 'Herod the Small' in me.
I want to be constantly aware of his presence in me.
I want to keep cutting him to seize and some day, I want to rout him and root him out of my life.
Until I succeed in uprooting him and banish him out of myself...
I will keep trying and trying, until I succeed!
And with hard work coupled with your help,
Succeed, I shall!
Oh, Blessed Babe of Bethlehem,
I want to remain some time in Silence,
Gazing at you with my glazed eyes!
Amen
JoAchen
Sunday, December, 28, 2014
joachenmonologues@gmail.com
Dear Reader,
Wish you a very
Happy and Peacefilled and Prosperous New Year!
PS
These Reflections are neither pure scientific exegesis nor are they any highly theological speculations. They are my devotional meditations mainly meant for my personal renewal and spiritual growth. They are a part of my, 'Prodigal Priest's' journaling on my Pilgrimage to the Home of our Heavenly Father.
I plan on uploading a Reflection each on 7th, 14th, 21st and on 28th of every month.
Dear Reader, as I keep you holding up in my daily prayers, I request you to include me too in yours.
If you do not want get these Reflections via email, please send a note and your email id will be deleted.
Thank you!
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