Herod’s Daughter

"She went out and said to her mother, "What shall I ask for?""

Mk 6:14-29

A girl delights her father with a simple gift, and her mother takes advantage of his resultant favor toward her and exacts murderous revenge. It's easy to view the daughter with pity, as a young child ill-used by her mother and personally innocent. But what if she wasn't as young as we might imagine? How do we understand this story if Herod's daughter was not a young child, but instead 15, 19, 22 years old?

It is so easy to place the blame for our failings on our parents. "I responded like that because this happened to me when I was young," or "That's just how I was raised." We fail to acknowledge that if we are 15, 19, 21 (or older!), we are capable of a great degree of agency. No one can make us feel a certain way. Even if we were raised in a less-than-perfect home, we have the power to choose our own present actions and attitudes.

Let's not allow ourselves to be puppets of the past, but rather active, engaged, thoughtful citizens of our current world. Let's find the strength to stand up to the many injustices we encounter, not allowing ourselves to be conduits of evil but rather forces for good.