Reflection for Wednesday, the 34th week in Ordinary time, 29 Nov 2023: MENE, TEKEL, and PERES

The Readings for Mass on Wednesday, the 34th week in Ordinary time, 29 Nov 2023, involve the handwriting on the wall.  The writing on the wall:

MENE, TEKEL, and PERES

These words, written on the wall, terrified the King of Babylon.  The book of Daniel explains:

When the king saw the wrist and hand that wrote, his face blanched;  his thoughts terrified him, his hip joints shook, and his knees knocked.

Daniel reads and explains the meaning of the words to the King:

This is the writing that was inscribed: MENE, TEKEL, and PERES.

These words mean:

MENE, God has numbered your kingdom and put an end to it;

TEKEL, you have been weighed on the scales and found wanting;

PERES, your kingdom has been divided and given to the Medes and Persians.

One may wonder what the King had done to warrant such a sign, and so severe a punishment.

Here is what he had done:

King Belshazzar gave a great banquet for a thousand of his lords, with whom he drank.  Under the influence of the wine, he ordered the gold and silver vessels which Nebuchadnezzar, his father, had taken from the temple in Jerusalem, to be brought in so that the king, his lords, his wives and his entertainers might drink from them.

When the gold and silver vessels taken from the house of God in Jerusalem had been brought in, and while the king, his lords, his wives and his entertainers were drinking wine from them, they praised their gods of gold and silver, bronze and iron, wood and stone.

What had the King done?  He, his lords, his wives and his entertainers were drinking wine from the sacred vessels dedicated to the worship of God, and praising their gods of gold and silver, bronze and iron, wood and stone.  

They had misused the sacred vessels that were for the worship of the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob; the God of Israel, the one true God, the Creator of Heaven and Earth.

We, who live and breathe, who are body and soul, the sons and daughters of Adam, are vessels for the worship of the one true God.  Let us not misuse these sacred vessels, either ourselves or those around us.