Thursday – Feast of the Holy Innocents

Gospel – Matthew 2:13-18

Come Into The Light

Church of St. Catherine, Bethlehem

An old Cherokee is teaching his grandson about life!  “A fight is going on inside me,” he said to the boy.  “It is a terrible fight and it is between two wolves. The white black wolf is evil and darkness–he is anger, envy, sorrow, regret, greed, arrogance, self-pity, guilt, resentment, inferiority, lies, false pride, superiority, and ego.”

He continued, “The white wolf is good and light – he is joy, peace, love, hope, serenity, humility, kindness, benevolence, empathy, generosity, truth, compassion, and faith.

The same fight is going on inside you–and inside every other person, too.”

The grandson thought about it for a minute and then asked his grandfather: “Which wolf will win?”  The old Cherokee simply replied, “The one you feed.”

It feels as if, just in the last few days, we have encountered both of the wolves.  3 days ago, on Christmas, it was all bright with hope and promise.  A Savior is born!  And 3 days from now, after presenting Him in the Temple, Mary and Joseph take Jesus home to Nazareth where He grows in strength and wisdom and favor with the Lord.

But today, between those two moments of joy, we retreat into the darkness of Herod the Great!  He is a ruler obsessed with power and greed.  He has his own sons executed to avoid any threat to his throne.  He is selfish, jealous, spiteful and arrogant; he thinks only of himself.  Like all of us, he has a choice of feeding the white wolf or the black.  When he is visited by the Magi, he deliberately chooses to be deceitful and dishonest, insisting that he wants to honor the newborn king.  And when he realizes that the Magi have avoided returning to him, he acts in rage and massacres all male infants under the age of two.  It is a horrible and bloody story of a cruel and vengeful ruler who had the chance to embrace the light and selfishly thought only of himself.

You can’t help recalling a similar story in the Old Testament – Pharaoh and Moses.  A prophecy says that a savior will be born.  So Pharaoh orders all male babies to be killed.  Only one survives miraculously – Moses – and he leads his people out of slavery and into the Promised Land.  Sound familiar?

We face a similar choice every day – choose light or retreat further into the darkness.  Do we embrace compassion and kindness, forgiveness and selflessness?  Or do we focus only on ourselves with lies, self-pity, regret and jealousy?  Do we come into the light of the Savior?  Or do we hide in the darkness of our fears?  Which wolf will we feed today?

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