24 JUNE – THE NATIVITY OF SAINT JOHN THE BAPTIST

John the Baptist was born to Zachariah, a priest, and his wife Elizabeth, who was the daughter of Aaron and a relative of the Blessed Virgin Mary. The angel Gabriel appeared to Zachariah and told him not to fear, that his prayer was to be answered, and his wife would bear him a son, who he must call John. Zachariah would have joy and gladness and rejoice in his son's nativity because he would be great before the Lord and be filled with the Holy Spirit, even in his mother's womb. He would not drink wine or strong drink and he would convert many of the children of Israel to the Lord their God. Because Zachariah was incredulous that his wife who was advanced in age and barren would bear a child, he was struck dumb until the things the angel had spoken of would come to pass. And so, when Elizabeth delivered her son, her relatives and neighbours said he should be named after his father, but she answered he will be called John, despite the fact that none of her relatives were called by this name. They made signs to Zachariah and he wrote “John is his name” on a tablet. Immediately his mouth was opened, his tongue loosened and he spoke, blessing God. Zachariah was filled with the Holy Spirit and prophesied, saying:

“Blessed be the Lord God of Israel, because He has visited and wrought the redemption of His people. And has raised up a horn of salvation to us, in the house of David, His servant.

As He spoke by the mouth of His holy prophets, who are from the beginning. Salvation from our enemies and from the hand of all that hate us.

To perform mercy to our fathers and to remember His holy testament. The oath, which He swore to Abraham our father, that He would grant to us.

That being delivered from the hand of our enemies, we may serve Him without fear, in holiness and justice before Him, all our days.

And you, child, will be called the prophet of the Highest, for you will go before the face of the Lord to prepare His ways, to give knowledge of salvation to His people to the remission of their sins.

Through the bowels of the mercy of our God, in which the Orient from on high has visited us, to enlighten those who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death, to direct our feet into the way of peace.”

Dom Prosper Guéranger:

“The Voice of one crying in the wilderness: ‘Prepare the way of the Lord: behold your God.’” (Isaias xl. 3-9). O in this world of ours grown now so cold, who can understand Earth’s transports at hearing these glad tidings so long expected? The promised God is not yet manifested, but already have the heavens bowed down to make way for His passage. No longer is He “'the One who is to come,” He for whom our fathers, the illustrious saints of the prophetic age, ceaselessly called in their indomitable hope. Still hidden, indeed, but already in our midst, He is resting beneath that virginal cloud, compared with which the heavenly purity of Thrones and Cherubim wax dim. Yes, the united fires of burning Seraphim grow faint in presence of the single love with which He alone encompasses Him in her human heart, she that lowly daughter of Adam whom He has chosen for His mother. Our accursed Earth, made suddenly more blessed far than yonder Heaven inexorably closed erstwhile to suppliant prayer, awaits no longer anything, save that the august mystery be revealed. The hour is come for Earth to join her canticles to that Eternal Praise Divine, which henceforth is rising from the depths, and which being itself no other than the Word Himself, celebrates God condignly. But beneath the veil of humility where His Divinity, even after as well as before His birth, must still continue to hide itself from men, who may discover the Emmanuel? Who, having recognised Him in His merciful abasements, may succeed in making Him to be accepted by a world lost in pride? Who may cry, pointing out the Carpenter’s Son (Matthew xiii. 55), in the midst of the crowd: Behold Him whom your fathers have so wistfully awaited!

For such is the order decreed from on High in the manifestation of the Messiah: conformably to the ways of men, the God-Man will not intrude Himself into public life. He will await, for the inauguration of His divine ministry, some man who has preceded Him in a similar career, and who is hereby sufficiently accredited, to introduce Him to the people. Sublime part for a creature to play, to stand guarantee for his God, witness for the Word! The exalted dignity of him who was to fill such a position had been notified, as had that of the Messiah, long before his birth. In the solemn Liturgy of the Age of types, the Levite choir, reminding the Most High of the meekness of David and of the promise made to him of a glorious heir, hailed from afar the mysterious lamp prepared by God for His Christ (Psalms cxxxi. 17). Not that to give light to His steps, Christ should stand in need of external help: He, the Splendour of the Father, had only to appear in these dark regions of ours to fill them with the effulgence of the very heavens, but so many false glimmerings had deceived mankind during the night of these ages of expectation, that had the true Light arisen on a sudden, it would not have been understood, or would but have blinded eyes now become well near powerless by reason of protracted darkness to endure its brilliancy. Eternal Wisdom therefore decreed that just as the rising sun is announced by the morning-star, and prepares his coming by the gently tempered brilliancy of aurora, so Christ who is Light should be preceded here below by a star. His precursor, and His approach be signalised by the luminous rays which He Himself, (though still invisible) would shed around this faithful herald of His coming. When, in by-gone days, the Most High vouchsafed to light up before the eyes of His prophets the distant future, that radiant flash which for an instant shot across the heavens of the Old Covenant melted away in the deep night and ushered not in, as yet, the longed-for dawn. The “morning-star” of which the Psalmist sings, will know nothing of defeat: declaring to night that all is now over with her, He will dim his own fires only in the triumphant splendour of the Sun of Justice. Even as aurora melts into day, so will He confound with Light Increated his own radiance. Being of himself, like every creature, nothingness and darkness, he will so reflect the brilliancy of the Messiah shining immediately on him, that many will mistake him even for the very Christ (Luke iii. 15).

The mysterious conformity of Christ and His Precursor, the incomparable proximity which unites one to the other, are to be found many times marked down in the Sacred Scriptures. If Christ is the Word, eternally uttered by the Father, He is to be the Voice bearing this divine Utterance wherever it is to reach. Isaias already hears the desert echoing with these accents, till now unknown. And the prince of prophets expresses his joy with all the enthusiasm of a soul already beholding itself in the very presence of its Lord and God (Isaias xl.). The Christ is the Angel of the Covenant, but in the very same text in which the Holy Ghost gives Him this title, for us so full of hope there appears likewise bearing the same name of angel, the inseparable messenger, the faithful ambassador, to whom the Earth is indebted for her coming to know the Spouse: “Behold, I send my angel and he will prepare the way before my face. And presently the Lord whom you seek, and the Angel of the testament whom you desire, will come to his Temple. Behold he comes, says the Lord of hosts” (Malachias iii. 1). And putting an end to the prophetic ministry of which he is the last representative, Malachias terminates his own oracles by the words which we have heard Gabriel addressing to Zachary, when he makes known to him the approaching birth of the Precursor (Malachias iv. 5-6). The presence of Gabriel on this occasion of itself shows with what intimacy with the Son of God this child then promised will be favoured, for the very same Prince of the heavenly hosts, came again, soon afterwards, to announce the Emmanuel. Countless are the faithful messengers that press around the Throne of the Holy Trinity, and the choice of these august ambassadors usually varies according to the dignity of the instructions to be transmitted to earth by the Most High. Nevertheless, it was fitting that the same Archangel charged with concluding the sacred Nuptials of the Word with the Human Nature should likewise prelude this great mission by preparing the coming of him whom the eternal decrees had designated as the Friend of the Bridegroom (John iii. 29).

Six months later, when on his deputation to Mary he strengthens his divine message by revealing to that purest of Virgins, the prodigy which had by then already given a son to the sterile Elizabeth: this being the first step of the Almighty towards a still greater marvel. John is not yet born, but without longer delay his career is begun: he is employed to attest the truth of the angel’s promises. How ineffable this guarantee of a child hidden as yet in his mother’s womb, but already brought forward as God’s witness in that sublime negotiation which at that moment is holding Heaven and Earth in suspense! Illumined from on high, Mary receives the testimony and hesitates no longer. “Behold the handmaid of the Lord,” says she to the Archangel, “be it done to me according to your word” (Luke I.). Gabriel has retired, bearing away with him the divine secret which he has not been commissioned to reveal to the rest of the world. Neither will the most prudent Virgin herself tell it. Even Joseph, her virginal Spouse, is to receive no communication of the mystery from her lips. Yet fear not, the woeful sterility beneath which Earth has been so long groaning, is not to be followed by an ignorance more sorrow-stricken still, now that it has yielded its fruit (Psalms lxxxiv. 13). There is one from whom Emmanuel will have no secret, nor reserve. It were fitting to reveal the marvel to him. Scarce has the Spouse taken possession of the Sanctuary all spotless in which the nine months of His first abiding among men must run their course, yes scarce has the Word been made Flesh, than Our Lady inwardly taught what is her Son’s desire, arising, makes all haste to speed into the hill-country of Judea (Luke i. 39). “The voice of my Beloved! Behold he comes, leaping upon the mountains, skipping over the hills” (Canticles ii. 8).

His first visit is to the “Friend of the Bridegroom,” the first out-pour of His graces is to John. A distinct feast will allow us to honour in a special manner the precious day on which the divine child, sanctifying His Precursor, reveals Himself to John by the voice of Mary: the day on which Our Lady, manifested by John, leaping within the womb of his mother, proclaims at last the wondrous things operated within her by the Almighty according to the merciful promise which He spoke to our fathers, to Abraham and to his seed forever (Luke i. 55). But the time is come when the good tidings are to spread from children and mothers through all the adjacent country, until at length they reach unto the whole world. John is about to be born, and, while still himself unable to speak, he is to loosen his father’s tongue. He is to put an end to that dumbness, with which the aged priest, a type of the old law, had been struck by the Angel. And Zachary, himself filled with the Holy Ghost, is about to publish in a new canticle, the blessed Visit of the Lord God of Israel (Luke i. 68)

Epistle – Isaias xlix. 1-7

Give ear, ye islands, and hearken, you people from afar. The Lord has called me from the womb, from the bowels of my mother He has been mindful of my name. And He has made my mouth like a sharp sword. In the shadow of His hand He has protected me, and has made me as a chosen arrow. In His quiver He has hidden me. And He said to me, “You are my servant Israel, for in you will I glory.” And now says the Lord that formed me from the womb to be His servant: “Behold I have given you to be the light of the gentiles, that you may be my salvation even to the farthest part of the earth. Kings will see, and princes will rise up, and adore for the Lord’s sake, and for the Holy One of Israel, who has chosen you.”

Thanks be to God.

Dom Prosper Gueranger:

Isaias, in these few lines, has directly in view the announcing of Christ. The application here made by the Church to Saint John Baptist once more shows us how closely the Messiah is united with His Precursor in the work of the Redemption. Rome, once capital of the gentile world, now Mother of Christendom, delights in proclaiming on this day to the sons whom the Spouse has given her, the consoling prophecy which was addressed to them of yore, before she herself was founded upon the seven hills. Eight hundred years before the birth of John and of the Messiah, a voice had been heard on Sion and, reaching beyond the frontiers of Jacob, had re-echoed along those distant coasts where sin’s darkness held mankind in the thraldom of Hell:” Give ear, you islands, and hearken, you people from afar!” It was the Voice of Him who was to come, and of the Angel deputed to walk before Him, the voice of John and of the Messiah, proclaiming the one predestination common to them both, which as servant and as Master, made them to be objects of the self-same eternal decree. And this voice, after having hailed the privilege which would designate each (though so diversely) from the maternal womb,as objects of complacency to the Almighty, went on to utter the divinely formulated oracle which was to be promulgated in other terms over the cradle of each by the respective ministry of Zachary and of Angels. “And He said to me: ‘You are my servant Israel, for in you will I glory, in you who are indeed Israel to Me...’ And he said: ‘it is a small thing that you should be my servant to raise up the tribes of Jacob, and to convert the dregs of Israel, who will not hearken to you, and of whom you will bring back but a small remnant (Isaias xlix. 4-6). Behold I have given you to be the Light of the Gentiles, that you may be my salvation, even to the farthest part of the earth; to make up for the scant welcome my people will have given you, kings will see, and princes will rise up, at your word, and adore for the Lord‘s sake, because He is faithful and for the Holy One of Israel, who has chosen you as the negotiator of His alliance’” (Isaias xlix. 8).

Children of the Bridegroom, let us enter into this thought of His. Let us understand what ought to be the gratitude of us Gentiles to him to whom all flesh is indebted for its knowledge of the Redeemer. From the wilderness, where his voice stung the pride of the descendants of the patriarchs, he beheld us succeeding to the haughty Synagogue. Without at all minimising the divine exactions, his stern language when addressed to the Bridegroom’s chosen ones, assumed a tone of considerateness which it never had for the Jews. “You offspring of vipers,” said he to these latter, “who has shown you to flee from the wrath to come? Bring forth, therefore, fruits worthy of penance, and do not begin to say, we have Abraham for our father. For I say to you, that God is able of these stones to raise up children to Abraham. For in your case, already is the axe laid to the root of the tree. Every tree, therefore that brings not forth good fruit, will be cut down and cast into the fire” (Luke iii. 7-9). But to the despised publican, to the hated soldier, to all those parched hearts of the gentile world, hard and arid as the desert rock, John the Baptist announced a flow of grace that would refresh their dried up souls making them fruitful in justice: “You publicans, do nothing more than what is appointed you by the exigences of the tax-laws. You soldiers, be content with your pay (Luke iii. 12-14). The Law was given by Moses, but better is grace — grace and truth come by Jesus Christ whom I declare to you (John i. 15-17): He it is who takes away the sins of the world (John i. 29), and of His fullness we have all received” (John i. 16).

What a new horizon was here opened out before these objects of reproach, held aloof so long by Israel’s scorn! But in the eyes of the Synagogue, such a blow aimed at Judah’s pretended privilege was a crime. She had borne the biting invectives of this son of Zachary. She had even, at one moment, shown herself ready to hail him as the Christ (John i. 19), but she who vaunted herself as pure, to be invited to go hand in hand with the unclean Gentile— that she could never brook — it were too much. From that moment John was judged of by her, as His Master would afterwards be. Later on, Jesus will insist on the difference of welcome given to the Precursor by those who listened, to him. Yes, He will even make thereof the basis for His sentence of reprobation pronounced against the Jews: “Amen I say to you that the publicans and harlots will go into the kingdom of God before you, for John came to you in the way of justice and you did not believe him. But the publicans and harlots believed him: but you seeing it, did not even afterwards repent, that you might believe him” (Matthew xxi. 31-32).

Gospel – Luke i. 57-68

Elizabeth’s full time of being delivered was come, and she brought forth a son. And her neighbours and kinsfolk heard that the Lord had showed His great mercy towards her, and they congratulated with her. And it came to pass that on the eighth day they came to circumcise the child, and they called him by his father’s name, Zachary. And his mother answering said: “Not so, but he will be called John.” And they said to her: “There is none of your kindred that is called by that name.” And they made signs to his father how he would have him called. And demanding a writing-table, he wrote, saying: “John is his name,” and they all wondered. And immediately his mouth was opened, and his tongue loosed. And he spoke, blessing God. And fear came upon all their neighbours. And all these things were noised abroad over all the hill country of Judea. And all they that heard them, laid them up in their heart, saying: “What a one, think you, will this child be?” For the hand of the Lord was with him. And Zachary his father was filled with the Holy Ghost; and he prophesied, saying: “Blessed be the Lord God of Israel, because He has visited, and wrought the redemption of His people.”

Praise be to you, O Christ.

Dom Prosper Gueranger:

After the places hallowed by the sojourn, here below, of the Word made Flesh, there is no spot of greater interest for the Christian soul than that in which were accomplished the events just mentioned in our Gospel. The town illustrated by the birth of the Precursor is situated about two leagues from Jerusalem, to the West. Just as Bethlehem, our Saviour’s birthplace is at the same distance southwards from the Holy City. Going out by the gate of Jaffa, the pilgrim bound for Saint John of the Mountain passes, on his way, the Greek monastery of Holy Cross, raised on the spot where the trees which formed our Lord’s cross, were hewn down: then pursuing his course through the close-set woods of the mountains of Judah, he attains a summit from which he can descry the waters of the Mediterranean. The house of Obed-Edom that for three months harboured the sacred Ark of the Covenant stood here, where a by-path leads by a short cut directly to the place where Mary, the true Ark, dwelt for three happy months in the house of her cousin Elizabeth. Two sanctuaries, distant about a thousand paces one from the other, are sacred to the memory of the two great facts just related to us, by Saint Luke: in the one, John the Baptist was conceived and born. In the other, the circumcision of the Precursor took place eight days after his birth. The first of these sanctuaries stands on the site of Zachary’s town house. Its present form dates from a period anterior to the Crusades. It is a beautiful church with three naves and a cupola, measuring thirty seven feet in length. The high altar is dedicated to Saint Zachary, and another altar, on the right, to Saint Elizabeth. On the left, seven marble steps lead to a subterraneous chapel hollowed out of the rock, which is identical with the furthermost apartment of the original house: this is the sanctuary of Saint John's Nativity. Four lamps glimmer in the darkness of this venerable crypt, while six others, suspended beneath the altar-slab itself, throw light on the following inscription engraved on the marble pavement: HIC PRECURSOR DOMINI NATUS EST.

Let us unite, on this day, with the devout sons of Saint Francis, guardians of those ineffable memories. More fortunate here, than at Bethlehem with its sacred grotto, they have not to dispute with schism, the homage which they pay in the name of the legitimate Bride to the Friend of the Bridegroom on the very spot of his Nativity. Local tradition sets at some distance from this first sanctuary, as we have said, the memorable place where the circumcision of the Precursor was performed. Besides a town house, Zachary was owner of another more isolated. Elizabeth had retired there during the first months of her pregnancy to taste in silence the gift of God (Luke i. 24-25). There did the meeting between herself and Our Lady on her arrival from Nazareth take place. There the sublime exultation of the Infants and their Mothers. There, the Magnificat proclaimed to Heaven that Earth henceforth could rival, and even surpass, supernal songs of praise and canticles of love. It was fitting that Zachary’s song, the morning canticle, should be first intoned there, where that of evening had ascended like incense of sweetest fragrance. In the accounts given by ancient pilgrims it is noticed that there were here two sanctuaries placed one above the other. In the lower one Mary and Elizabeth met. In the upper story of this same country house of Zachary, the greater portion of the facts just set before us by the Church were enacted.

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PRECURSOR of the Messiah, we share in the joy which your birth brought to the world. This birth of yours announced that of the Son of God. Now, each year, our Emmanuel assumes anew His life in the Church and in souls. And in our day, just as it was [two thousand] years ago, He wills that this birth of His will not take place without you preparing the way, now as then, for that Nativity by which our Saviour is given to each one of us. Scarce has the sacred Cycle completed the series of mysteries by which the glorification of the Man-God is consummated and the Church is founded, than Christmas begins to appear on the horizon. Already, so to speak, does John reveal by exulting demonstrations the approach of our Infant God. Sweet Prophet of the Most High, not yet can you speak, when already you outstrip all the Princes of Prophecy. But full soon the desert will seem to snatch you forever from the commerce of men. Then Advent comes, and the Church will show us that she has found you once more. She will constantly lead us to listen to your sublime teachings, to hear you bearing witness to Him whom she is expecting. From this present moment, therefore, begin to prepare our souls. Having descended anew on this our Earth, coming as you now do on this day of gladness as the messenger of the near approach of our Saviour, can you possibly remain idle one instant in face of the immense work which lies before you to accomplish in us?

To chase sin away, subdue vice, correct the instincts falsified in this poor fallen nature of ours. All this would have been done within us, as indeed it should long ago, had we but responded faithfully to your past labours. Yet, alas, it is only too true that in the greater number of us scarce has the first turning of the soil been begun: stubborn clay in which n stones and briers have defied your careful toil these many years! We acknowledge it to be so, filled as we are with the confusion of guilty souls. Yes, we confess our faults to you and to Almighty God, as the Church teaches us to do at the beginning of the great Sacrifice. But at the same time, we beseech you with her, to pray to the Lord our God for us. You proclaimed in the desert: from these very stones even, God is still able to raise up children of Abraham. Daily, do the solemn formulae of the Oblation in which is prepared the ceaselessly renewed Immolation of our Saviour, tell of the honourable and important part which is yours in this august Sacrifice. Your name, again pronounced while the Divine Victim is present on the Altar, pleads for us sinners to the God of all mercy. Would that, in consideration of your merits and of our misery, He would deign to be propitious to the persevering prayer of our mother the Church, change our hearts, and in place of evil attachments, attract them to virtue, so as to deserve for us the visit of Emmanuel!

At this sacred moment of the Mysteries, when thrice is invoked, in the words of that formula taught us by yourself, the “Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world,” He, this very Lamb, will Himself have pity on us and give us peace: peace so precious, with Heaven, with Earth, with self, which is to prepare us for the Bridegroom by making us become sons of God (John i. 12; Matthew v. 9) according to the testimony which, daily, by the mouth of the priest about to quit the altar, you continue to renew. Then, Precursor, will your joy and ours be complete. That sacred union, of which this day of your Nativity already contains for us the gladsome hope, will become, even here below and beneath the shadow of faith, a sublime reality, while still awaiting the clear vision of Eternity.

On this day according to the ROMAN MARTYROLOGY:

At Rome, in the time of Nero, the commemoration of many holy martyrs who were accused of having set fire to the city, and cruelly put to death in various manners by the emperor’s order. Some were covered with the skins of wild beasts and lacerated by dogs. Others were fastened to crosses, others again were delivered to the flames to serve as torches in the night. All these were disciples of the Apostles, and the first fruits of the martyrs, which the Roman Church, a field so fertile in martyrs, offered to God before the death of the Apostles.

In the same city, the holy martyrs Faustus and twenty three others.

At Satalis in Armenia, seven saintly brothers, martyrs: Orentius, Heros, Pharnacius, Firminus, Firmus, Cyriacus and Longinus who owe their martyrdom to the emperor Maximian. Because they were Christians, they were deprived of the military cincture by his command, separated from one another, hurried away to various places, and in the midst of painful trials, found their repose in the Lord.

In the diocese of Paris, at Creteil, the martyrdom of the Saints Agoardus and Aglibertus, with a multitude of others of both sexes.

At Autun, the demise of St. Simplicius, bishop and confessor.

At Lobbes, St. Theodulphus, bishop.

At Stilo in Calabria, St. John, surnamed Therestus, distinguished for his fidelity to the monastic rule, and for his sanctity.

And in other places, many other holy martyrs, confessors and virgins.

Thanks be to God.