25 November 2017
Saturday of the Thirty-third Week in Ordinary Time
King Antiochus IV died 164 years before the coming of Christ, as recorded in the first book of Maccabees, chapter 6. The manner of the king’s death is instructive. He began to die when he realized that two of his major initiatives were failures: his military campaigns in Persia and in Judea. Failure is a form of death to a man of success, such as Antiochus. He had successfully claimed the throne. He had conquered Judea and even Egypt, but then he lost Judea to the Maccabees, while simultaneously failing in Persia, so he took to his bed, overcome by grief and anxiety. He would never arise from it.
While on his deathbed, he summoned his friends and made something of a confession. His self-assessment seems rather balanced. He says that he had been kindly and beloved by the people, but that he had done evil to the people of Jerusalem, which was why he saw death now coming for him. From this situation he saw no escape, except, before perishing, to arrange for his son, Antiochus V, to succeed him to the throne.
But what if King Antiochus IV had died some centuries later? And what if St. Paul had visited him as he was dying? What would be the message of good news that St. Paul would bring? And what if you were St. Paul, standing at the dying man’s bedside? Could you tell him the good news, or is there something stopping you?