Caritas Christi Urget Nos

Tag: St. John the Baptist

  • Friday of the Fourth Week in Ordinary Time

    Friday of the Fourth Week in Ordinary Time

    Today’s readings

    In our Gospel today, we hear about the end of Saint John the Baptist’s life. Herod’s wife, Herodias, held a grudge against John because he opposed their marriage. So she schemed to end his life, as if snuffing out the messenger could ever possibly snuff out the Truth. Saint John the Baptist was one who lived his entire life pointing the way to the Lord. With every fiber of his being, and until his last breath, he gave praise to God.

    Pointing others to the Lord, even at great personal cost, is the role of disciples, which includes you and me. We should always give praise to God and point others to him. At our best, we should be an Assembly of holy people, helping all the world to find our God. Whatever we do, and wherever we are, people should see Jesus in us. In fact, we might be the only Jesus someone sees. Let’s never get in the way of that.

    In the quiet times of Mass and of our day, let’s spend some time thinking about how we might point to Jesus for the people God puts in our path today, and ask God to give us the grace to do it.

  • Friday of the Fourth Week of Ordinary Time

    Friday of the Fourth Week of Ordinary Time

    Today’s readings
    Mass for the school children.

    The readings for daily Mass usually follow in a series.  So we read from a certain book of the Bible for a while, and then we move on to another one for a while.  So for the last couple of weeks, we have been listening to the story of the rise and fall of good King David, mostly from the books of Samuel.  Today’s is kind of a poetic summary from the book of Sirach, the wisdom writer.  Yesterday, in our first reading, we heard the story of his peaceful death and the transfer of the kingship to his son, Solomon.  Today, tells us about David in more poetic, and somewhat apologetic and glowing terms.  From it, we can see that, when David was at his best, he gave praise to God. 

    In our Gospel today, we hear about the end of Saint John the Baptist’s life.  Herod’s wife, Herodias, held a grudge against John because he opposed their marriage.  So she schemed to end his life.  Saint John the Baptist was one who lived his entire life pointing the way to the Lord.  With every fiber of his being, and until his last breath, he gave praise to God.

    So both King David and Saint John the Baptist did their best to give praise to God until their dying breath.  This is the role of disciples, which includes you and me.  We should always give praise to God and point others to him.  At our best, we should be an Assembly of holy people, helping all the world to find our God.  Whatever we do, and wherever we are, people should see Jesus in us.  In fact, we might be the only Jesus someone sees.  Let’s never get in the way of that.

    In the quiet times of Mass, spend some time thinking about how you might be Jesus to the people around you today, and ask God to give you the grace to do it.

  • Saturday of the Second Week of Advent

    Saturday of the Second Week of Advent

    Today’s readings

    One of my favorite things about the season of Advent is the people we meet along the way.  In the early days of Advent we have celebrated the Immaculate Conception of Mary and we remember St. Juan Diego, St. John of the Cross, St. Lucy and St. Nicholas. We’ve been hearing from Isaiah all along in our first readings, and he has more to say to us still before we hear of his words’ fulfillment on Christmas Day.

    Then there’s the prophet Elijah, about whom we hear in today’s first reading.  Tradition and Scripture tell us that Elijah didn’t die; he was taken up to heaven in a fiery chariot on a whirlwind as his successor, Elisha, looked on.  It was expected that one day he would return.  And so ever since, even to this day, the Jewish people have left an empty place at the table for Elijah at every major celebration.

    Jesus makes it clear, however, that Elijah has already returned.  In today’s Gospel reading, we meet Jesus and the disciples coming down the mountain from the Transfiguration.  They have just seen Elijah on the mountaintop along with Jesus and Moses.  And so they ask Jesus, as they make their way down, about the return of Elijah.  When he tells them that Elijah has already returned, but nobody recognized him, they realize that he is speaking of Saint John the Baptist, that other Advent character that we have been privileged to meet.

    And it’s a bit of a foreshadowing.  Just as the people missed Elijah’s return, so they will miss Jesus’ return too.  The Resurrection is a sure sign of God’s love and presence in the world, but how many didn’t believe then, and how many still don’t believe!  For people to come to know that Christ has come and lived and died and risen for us, Isaiah’s voice must still be heard.  John the Baptist did that by crying out in the desert.  Now it’s our turn.

  • The Nativity of Saint John the Baptist

    The Nativity of Saint John the Baptist

    Today’s readings

    Today we celebrate a feast that is a bit unusual for us.  When we celebrate a saint’s day, it is usually celebrated on the feast of their death, not their birth.  But today we celebrate the birth of a saint, Saint John the Baptist, and the fact that we’re celebrating his birth points to the fact that St. John the Baptist had a very special role to play in the life of Christ.  In fact, the only other saint for whom we celebrate a birthday is the Blessed Virgin Mary.

    In our first reading today, Isaiah says that he was given his name while in his mother’s womb.  The same was true of Saint John the Baptist, whose name was given to Zechariah and Elizabeth by the Angel Gabriel.  Names have meaning.  The names of the prophets we encounter in today’s Liturgy of the Word are particularly meaningful.  Isaiah means “The LORD is salvation,” which pretty much encompassed the meaning of Isaiah’s mission, proclaiming salvation to the Israelites who were oppressed in exile.  The name given to the Baptist, John, means “God has shown favor.”  And that was in fact the message of his life.  He came to pave the way for Jesus Christ, who was the favor of God shown to the whole human race.

    Ultimately, the purpose for Saint John the Baptist’s life was summed up in a statement he made about himself and Our Lord later on in the Gospel of John: “I must decrease, He must increase.”  And so it must be for us.  Sometimes we want to turn the spotlight on ourselves, at least unconsciously, when that is, of course, exactly where it should not be.  For John the Baptist, the spotlight was always on Christ, the One whose sandals he was unfit to fasten.  Just as the birth of Saint John the Baptist helped his father Zechariah to speak once again, so his life gives voice to our own purpose in the world.  Like Saint John the Baptist, we are called to be a people who point to Christ, who herald the Good News, and who live our lives for God.  We are called to decrease, while Christ increases in all of us.  We are called to be that light to the nations of which Isaiah speaks today, so that God’s salvation may reach to the ends of the earth.

    Saint John the Baptist, pray for us.

  • Saturday after Epiphany

    Saturday after Epiphany

    Today’s readings

    “He must increase; I must decrease.”

    By these words, St. John the Baptist indicates that the Epiphany, the manifestation of our Lord in the flesh, is complete.  John’s disciples have got it wrong; they took offense at Jesus baptizing when he himself had been baptized by John.  They assumed that because John had baptized Jesus, that Jesus must in some way be inferior to John.  But John knows his mission as the Forerunner.  He knows that his ministry was one of paving the way for Jesus and the Gospel.  He knows that his own baptism was a mere precursor of the baptism that Jesus would bring, a baptism that imparts the fullness of the Holy Spirit to all believers.

    “He must increase; I must decrease.”

    St. John the Evangelist tells us in his letters that we are to be on guard against those who come in the name of Jesus but are not of him.  We must be wary of pretenders and totally turn away from false idols.  He has spent this past week in our first readings giving us the standards of discernment that help us to know the Truth.  Anyone of the Truth will testify to the Incarnation of Jesus in the flesh.  Anyone of the Truth will love deeply, and will love neighbors as well as God.  Anyone of the Truth, he tells us today, will cast out sin, from himself and from others.  Even though he may not be perfect, still he will battle sin and turn to Christ incarnate in the flesh for the indwelling of the Spirit, for the grace of his baptism.

    “He must increase; I must decrease.”

    Christ came in the flesh because, as the Psalmist tells us today, the Lord takes delight in his people.  As his people then, must also delight in him.  We must remember that we are all in the service of the one who came to set us free.  We must remember that our own thoughts, our own desires, all of these are not the be-all and end-all of existence, and quite often, we must die to them in order that God be manifested among us.  As we offer and prepare our gifts for the Eucharist today, may we also offer the decreasing of ourselves in order to pave the way for the increasing of Jesus Christ.

  • Solemnity of the Nativity of Saint John the Baptist

    Solemnity of the Nativity of Saint John the Baptist

    Today’s readings

    Today we celebrate a feast that is a bit unusual for us.  First of all, it’s a saint’s feast day, and saints’ days don’t usually take precedence over a Sunday celebration.  Secondly, whenever we do celebrate a saint’s day, it is usually celebrated on the feast of their death, not their birth.  But today we do gather to celebrate the birth of a saint, Saint John the Baptist, and the fact that we’re celebrating his birth and his day at all at this Sunday celebration points to the fact that St. John the Baptist had a very special role to play in the life of Christ.  In fact, the only other saint for whom we celebrate a birthday is the Blessed Virgin Mary, so that tells us something about how important John the Baptist is.

    Just as for Jesus, we don’t know the precise day John the Baptist was born.  So the feast of their Nativities – their births – was a tradition developed by the early Church. The dates the Church selected are significant.  Jesus’ birthday was placed around the time of the winter solstice, mostly to counteract pagan festivals of the coming of winter.  John the Baptist’s birthday was then placed around the time of the summer solstice for similar reasons.  But there’s more to it even than that.  In the Gospel of John, there is a passage where John the Baptist says of himself and Jesus, “I must decrease, he must increase.”  So John’s birthday is placed at the time when the days start to become shorter, and Jesus’ birthday is placed at the time when the days start to become longer.  John the Baptist must decrease, Jesus must increase.

    Today’s readings have a lot to do with who the prophet is.  Saint John the Baptist was the last prophet of the old order, and his mission was to herald the coming of Jesus Christ who is himself the new order.  Tradition holds that prophets were created for their mission, that their purpose was laid out while they were yet to be born.  Isaiah, one of the great prophets of the old order, tells us of his commissioning.  He says, “The LORD called me from birth, from my mother’s womb he gave me my name.”

    So Isaiah was given his name while in his mother’s womb.  The same was true of St. John the Baptist, whose name was given to Zechariah and Elizabeth by the Angel Gabriel.  Names have meaning, especially the names of the prophets we encounter.  Isaiah means “The Lordis salvation,” which pretty much encompassed the meaning of Isaiah’s mission, proclaiming salvation to the Israelites who were oppressed in exile.  Jeremiah means “May the Lordexalt.”  The name given to the Baptist, John, means “God has shown favor.”  And that was in fact the message of his life.  He came to pave the way for Jesus Christ, who was the favor of God shown to the whole human race.

    The point is, these men were created for their prophetic calling.  That’s true for us too.  All of us who have been baptized have a prophetic calling that came before we were ever born.  God created us for something special.  He created us to be with him, he created us to follow him, he created us to draw other people to him.  This means that, according to our abilities, our vocation and station in life, we were meant to serve God in some way that God might be glorified and that others may come to know him.

    We live in a society that is all about protecting and promoting ourselves.  Saint John the Baptist would have us promote Jesus instead.  That’s what he was about.  As it was for him, so it is for us: we must decrease, Jesus must increase.

  • The Passion of Saint John the Baptist

    The Passion of Saint John the Baptist

    Today’s readings

    What we are celebrating in today’s feast is the fact that prison bars cannot silence truth. John the Baptist was not asked to renounce his faith; indeed Herod was probably very interested in John’s faith and may have even asked him about it on occasion. Not that he wanted to convert, mind you, but he just seemed to have a kind of morbid fascination with the man Jesus, and anyone who followed him. But the real reason that he kept John locked up was that Herodias didn’t like John, who had a following, publicly telling them what they should and should not do. Herod’s taking his brother’s wife was not permitted in Judaism, but, in her mind, it would all blow over if John would just stop talking about it.

    But that’s not how the truth works. And John’s one purpose in life was to testify to the Truth — Truth with a capital “T” — to point the way to Jesus. So he was not about to soft-pedal the wrong that Herod and Herodias were doing. And that was something Herodias just could not live with. As soon as the opportunity presented itself, she eagerly had John beheaded and rid herself of his prophecy. But that didn’t make her any less accountable to the truth.

    This could be a rather sad feast. The end of one who worked hard for the reign of God, and over something seemingly so silly. But, as St. Bede the Venerable says of him: “There is no doubt that blessed John suffered imprisonment and chains as a witness to our Redeemer, whose forerunner he was, and gave his life for him. His persecutor had demanded not that he should deny Christ, but only that he should keep silent about the truth. Nevertheless … does Christ not say: ‘I am the truth?’ Therefore, because John shed his blood for the truth, he surely died for Christ.”

    And so, for those of us who are heirs of the Truth, this is indeed a joyful feast. John the Baptist could not keep silent about the truth, whether it was truth with a capital or lower-case “T”. We must not keep silent about the truth either. We are called to offer our own lives as a testimony to the truth, even when it’s inconvenient.

  • The Passion of Saint John the Baptist

    The Passion of Saint John the Baptist

    Today’s readings

    What we are celebrating in today’s feast is the fact that prison bars cannot silence truth. John the Baptist was not asked to renounce his faith; indeed Herod was probably very interested in John’s faith and may have even asked him about it on occasion. Not that he wanted to convert, mind you, but he just seemed to have a kind of morbid fascination with the man Jesus, and anyone who followed him. But the real reason that he kept John locked up was that Herodias didn’t like John, who had a following, publicly telling them what they should and should not do. Herod’s taking his brother’s wife was not permitted in Judaism, but, in her mind, it would all blow over if John would just stop talking about it.

    But that’s not how the truth works. And John’s one purpose in life was to testify to the Truth — Truth with a capital “T” — to point the way to Jesus. So he was not about to soft-pedal the wrong that Herod and Herodias were doing. And that was something Herodias just could not live with. As soon as the opportunity presented itself, she eagerly had John beheaded and rid herself of his prophecy. But that didn’t make her any less accountable to the truth.

    This could be a rather sad feast. The end of one who worked hard for the reign of God, and over something seemingly so silly. But, as St. Bede the Venerable says of him: “There is no doubt that blessed John suffered imprisonment and chains as a witness to our Redeemer, whose forerunner he was, and gave his life for him. His persecutor had demanded not that he should deny Christ, but only that he should keep silent about the truth. Nevertheless … does Christ not say: ‘I am the truth?’ Therefore, because John shed his blood for the truth, he surely died for Christ.”

    And so, for those of us who are heirs of the Truth, this is indeed a joyful feast. John the Baptist could not keep silent about the truth, whether it was truth with a capital or lower-case “T”. We must not keep silent about the truth either. We are called to offer our own lives as a testimony to the truth, even when it’s inconvenient.

  • The Nativity of Saint John the Baptist

    The Nativity of Saint John the Baptist

    Today’s readings

    Today’s readings have a lot to do with who the prophet is. St. John the Baptist was the last prophet of the old order, and his mission was to herald the coming of Jesus Christ who is himself the new order.  Tradition holds that prophets were created for their mission, that their purpose was laid out while they were yet to be born.  Isaiah, one of the great prophets of the old order, tells us of his commissioning in our first reading today.  He says, “The LORD called me from birth, from my mother’s womb he gave me my name.”  The rest of the reading tells us of his mission, a mission of hardship, but one of being compelled to speak the word of god as a sharp-edged sword.  His calling began as a call to preach to his own people, but by the end of the reading, it is clear that that commission became a call to preach to every nation on earth.

    Isaiah says that he was given his name while in his mother’s womb. The same was true of Saint John the Baptist, whose name was given to Zechariah and Elizabeth by the Angel Gabriel.  Names have meaning.  Maybe you know what your name means.  But far more significant are the names of the prophets we encounter in today’s Liturgy of the Word.  Isaiah means “The LORD is salvation,” which pretty much encompassed the meaning of Isaiah’s mission, proclaiming salvation to the Israelites who were oppressed in exile.  The name given to the Baptist, John, means “God has shown favor.”  And that was in fact the message of his life.  He came to pave the way for Jesus Christ, who was the favor of God shown to the whole human race.

    Saint Augustine reminds us that in the Gospel of John, there is a passage where John the Baptist says of himself and Jesus, “I must decrease, he must increase.”  Ultimately, the purpose for St. John the Baptist’s life was summed up in that statement.  And so it must be for us.  Sometimes we want to turn the spotlight on ourselves, when that is exactly where it should not be.  For John the Baptist, the spotlight was always on Christ, the One for whom he was unfit to fasten his sandals.  Just as the birth of St. John the Baptist helped his father Zechariah to speak once again, so his life gives voice to our own purpose in the world.  Like St. John the Baptist, we are called to be a people who point to Christ, who herald the Good News, and who live our lives for God.  We are called to decrease, while Christ increases in all of us.  We are called to be that light to the nations of which Isaiah speaks today, so that God’s salvation may reach to the ends of the earth.

    St. John the Baptist, pray for us.

  • The Passion of Saint John the Baptist

    The Passion of Saint John the Baptist

    Today’s readings

    What we are celebrating in today’s feast is the fact that prison bars cannot silence truth. John the Baptist was not asked to renounce his faith; indeed Herod was probably very interested in John’s faith and may have even asked him about it on occasion. Not that he wanted to convert, mind you, but he just seemed to have a kind of morbid fascination with the man Jesus, and anyone who followed him. But the real reason that he kept John locked up was that Herodias didn’t like John, who had a following, publicly telling them what they should and should not do. Herod’s taking his brother’s wife was not permitted in Judaism, but it would all blow over if John would just stop talking about it.

    But that’s not how the truth works. And John’s one purpose in life was to testify to the Truth — Truth with a capital “T” — to point the way to Jesus. So he was not about to soft-pedal the wrong that Herod and Herodias were doing. And that was something Herodias just could not live with. As soon as the opportunity presented itself, she eagerly had John beheaded and rid herself of his prophecy. But that didn’t make her any less accountable to the truth.

    This could be a rather sad feast. The end of one who worked hard for the reign of God, and over something seemingly so silly. But, as St. Bede the Venerable says of him: “There is no doubt that blessed John suffered imprisonment and chains as a witness to our Redeemer, whose forerunner he was, and gave his life for him. His persecutor had demanded not that he should deny Christ, but only that he should keep silent about the truth. Nevertheless … does Christ not say: “I am the truth?” Therefore, because John shed his blood for the truth, he surely died for Christ.

    And so, for those of us who are heirs of the Truth, this is indeed a joyful feast. John the Baptist could not keep silent about the truth, whether it was truth with a capital or lower-case “T”. We must not keep silent about the truth either. We are called to offer our own lives as a testimony to the truth.