What happened to the gold, frankincense and myrrh (“They made the most of their limited choices”, 21/28 December 2013)? Paul Gaechter SJ (1893-1983), who taught New Testament in Innsbruck from 1946 to 1963, a thoroughly pragmatic (if conservative) scholar, suggests that Mary and Joseph had little choice regarding the Magi’s gifts – they needed them for their escape into Egypt. Obviously we’ll never know the facts, nor even if the story of the Wise Men was basically a midrash. That’s not so important. We regularly seek to communicate the significance of events by using this kind of interplay between event, symbol and interpretation in order to discern truth and meaning; that’s a vital part of human communication. Isn’t there something down to