When King Herod heard John the Baptist speak, “he was very much disturbed; yet he felt the attraction of his words.” On the other hand, “Herodias harbored a grudge” against John and “wanted to kill him.”
Here we see the difference between sins of the flesh and sins of the spirit. Herod clearly suffers from sins of the flesh. He desires Herodias enough to have snatched her away from his brother. He doesn’t follow John’s teaching, yet there is something still good in him that likes to hear John speak. He bears no ill will against John.
Herodias suffers from sins of the spirit. She is, apparently, one of those women who knows men well and who, even though old enough to have a mature daughter, knows how to be attractive to them. She has schemed her way into being queen and enjoys her status. She hates John—it’s not enough that he is in prison and powerless against her; she is bothered by anyone who dares oppose her.
The Catholic Church has always regarded sins of the spirit as worse than sins of the flesh; however, we see how sins of the flesh end up in today’s reading. Herodias’ daughter—whom tradition has given the name Salome—rouses the lust of Herod and his guests, and Herod enthusiastically offers her what she wants. When she requests the death of John, Herod—still bearing John no ill will personally, you understand—orders his execution.
At the end of Oscar Wilde’s famous play Salome, Herod, in a frenzied rage, orders the death of Salome for the evil she has done and prompted him to do. But this is not what happened in real life. With the exception of John, everyone involved went on with his or her life.
Herod still had a curiosity about spiritual things. On Good Friday morning, Jesus was brought before Herod. St. Luke writes that Herod had wanted to see Jesus for a long time and questioned him at length. We read that, although Jesus had spoken with the high priest and the other accusers as well as with Pilate, he refused to speak with Herod.
Luke adds that, though Herod and Pilate had been enemies, “they became friends from that day.” This happens sometimes with people who commit evil together. As a way of assuaging their guilty conscience, they form an affection and a determination to help those who have shared in their black deed.
When the Virgin Mary appeared at Fatima at the beginning of the modern age, she told the children that more people go to hell for sins of the flesh than for any other kind of sin. I think there are two reasons for this. First, though sins of the flesh are not the worst kind of sins, they often lead us to commit worse sins, as happened with Herod. Second, technological advances were expanding the realm of sins of the flesh, especially in the area of pornography. These advances would make it more difficult for people to lead a virtuous life.
We men particularly have to strive for virtues that oppose the sins of the flesh. It is often easy for men to enjoy sexual sins, then abandon women to suffer any consequences: not out of ill will, perhaps, but they are abandoned nonetheless. It is up to all of us to lead a spiritual regimen, to grow in the virtues of temperance and self-discipline, and in this way to lead the modern world in a way it has not yet known.
