Published September 24, 2026
Today's Gospel is short, almost a passing note in Luke's narrative, yet it opens a window onto one of the most persistent temptations in the spiritual life: the temptation to remain curious about Jesus without ever truly encountering him. Herod the tetrarch hears reports of everything Jesus is doing, and Luke tells us he is perplexed. Rumors swirl. Some say John the Baptist has been raised from the dead. Others say Elijah has appeared, fulfilling the old expectation that the great prophet would return before the Day of the Lord. Still others say one of the ancient prophets has risen again. Herod, who had John beheaded, is left with an unanswered question hanging in the air: who, then, is this man about whom he hears such things? And Luke closes the scene with a single, quiet detail: Herod kept trying to see him.
That last line deserves our attention, because it captures something universal about the human heart. Herod is not indifferent to Jesus. He is fascinated by him. He wants information, explanation, maybe even entertainment. But wanting to see Jesus is not the same as wanting to follow him. In fact, when Herod finally does get his wish, much later in Luke's Gospel, during the events of the Passion, he treats Jesus as a curiosity to be mocked rather than a Lord to be reverenced. The desire to see was never a desire to believe.
This is worth sitting with, because most of us live somewhere on Herod's spectrum more often than we would like to admit. We can be curious about Jesus in a hundred small ways. We ask questions about faith at dinner parties. We read a spiritual book because it is popular. We watch a homily online because someone shared it. None of this is bad; curiosity can be the beginning of conversion. But curiosity becomes dangerous when it substitutes for encounter, when it lets us feel spiritually engaged without ever letting Christ actually rearrange our lives. Herod wanted a show. He did not want a Savior. The difference between those two desires is the difference between religion as spectacle and faith as surrender.
Notice also what drives Herod's perplexity: guilt. He is the one who had John killed, and now reports of a new prophet, a miracle worker, someone with authority over demons and disease, unsettle him precisely because his conscience is not at peace. When we carry unaddressed guilt, unrepented sin, or old wounds we have never brought into the light, we often respond to holiness the way Herod does: with anxious fascination rather than open-hearted welcome. Jesus becomes a puzzle to be solved from a safe distance instead of a physician to be approached for healing. The Gospel today invites us to ask whether there is a Herod-like perplexity in our own hearts, a nervous curiosity about Christ that keeps him at arm's length because getting closer would mean confronting something we would rather not face.
There is a striking contrast between Herod's posture and the posture Luke has just described in the verses immediately before this passage, where Jesus sends the Twelve out to proclaim the kingdom and heal the sick, giving them nothing for the journey but his word and his power. The apostles go out with nothing but trust; Herod, meanwhile, sits in his palace surrounded by reports, second-hand accounts, and speculation. One posture is active discipleship; the other is passive spectatorship. The Gospel places these two responses to Jesus side by side almost as a diagnostic tool, letting us see which one more closely resembles our own daily walk with Christ.
It is also worth remembering who this Gospel is really preparing us for. Luke is building toward the moment, just a few verses later, when Jesus will ask his own disciples the very question Herod is asking from the outside: who do the crowds say that I am? But then Jesus turns the question inward: who do you say that I am? Peter's answer, the Christ of God, is not the product of rumor or political anxiety. It flows from relationship, from having walked with Jesus, watched him, and let his life reshape their own. Herod's question and Peter's question are the same words, but they come from entirely different places in the soul. One is the question of a spectator; the other is the confession of a disciple.
Practically speaking, this Gospel calls us to notice the difference between information about Jesus and intimacy with Jesus. It is possible to know a great deal about Catholic teaching, to be able to quote Scripture, to follow religious news and commentary, and still keep Christ at the level of curiosity rather than communion. The invitation today is to move from asking about Jesus to actually seeking him in prayer, in the sacraments, in quiet, undistracted time before the Blessed Sacrament or simply in silence with an open heart. Herod wanted to see Jesus; he never wanted to see himself in Jesus' light. Real encounter with Christ always involves that second movement, the willingness to be seen and known by him, warts and all, and to let that gaze change us.
As we move through this ordinary Thursday, perhaps the simplest prayer we can offer is to ask for the grace of Peter rather than the perplexity of Herod: not merely to hear about Jesus, but to know him; not merely to wonder who he is, but to say, with our lives as much as our words, that he is Lord. The rumors will always be there, competing for our attention with half-truths and easy explanations. What the Gospel asks of us today is to set the rumors aside and go looking for the Lord himself, trusting that he is far closer, and far more willing to be found, than Herod ever imagined.