The
Solemnity of the Birth of Saint John the Baptist
Dear brothers and sisters,
Birthdays are, for many people,
significant occasions on which to gather with their family and friends.
Particularly for the young, birthdays are especially festive moments to play
games, eat cake and ice cream, and receive gifts. Parents go to great lengths
to ensure their children have an enjoyable birthday as they recall with
gratitude the day they first heard the voice of their son or daughter. Holy
Mother Church, on the other hand, only rarely celebrates the birthdays of her children,
at least as we normally think of them.
Obviously, we celebrate the Nativity
– the birth - of Christ Jesus on December 25th, but he is the Church’s
founder, not one of her children. The Church celebrates the birth of the
Blessed Virgin Mary on September 8th, but she is the image and model
of the Church; indeed, she is the Mother of the Church, as the Holy Father Pope
Francis recently reminded us. Today’s solemnity of the Nativity of Saint John
the Baptist is unique in the liturgical life of the Church; of all the saints,
only birth is accorded the rank of a solemnity.
Saint Augustine of Hippo reminds us
that “the Church observes the birth of John as in some way sacred; and you will
not find any other of the great men of old whose birth we celebrate officially.”[1]
Indeed, aside from the Lord Jesus and his Mother, the Church does not officially
observe the birthdays of any other saint. This is not to say the Church does
not celebrate the birthdays of her holy and faithful children. Take, for
example, Saint Augustine. The Church celebrates his life on August 28th
because it is the day of his death, his dies
natale – his birthday, as the early Christians called it – into the glory
of heaven. This is why Saint Augustine tells that today’s celebration of the
birth of Saint John the Baptist “cannot be passed over in silence.”[2]
Recalling the full extent of Saint
John’s life, one Scripture scholar has called him “a glorious failure,” a
curious phrase to be sure, though not untrue.[3] After
John was born, his mother’s “neighbors and relatives … rejoiced with her;” presumably
his father’s relatives also rejoiced with him, but Luke does not give us this
information (Luke 1:58). “Fear came upon all their neighbors” when Zechariah’s
tongue was finally unleashed so he could bless God (Luke 1:65; cf. Luke 1:64).
As the people considered the unusual – and miraculous – circumstances of John’s
birth, they asked, “What, then, will this child be?” because they knew “the
hand of the Lord was with him” (Luke 1:66).
Their wonder at the Baptist did not
decrease with the passage of years. The crowds went out to see John from “all
the country of Judea, and all the people of Jerusalem” (Mark 1:5). They went
out to the river Jordan to hear his preaching, which consisted of two simple
messages: “Prepare the way of the Lord, make his paths straight” and “He must
increase, but I must decrease” (Luke 3:4 and John 3:30). A great many of the people
heeded his preaching and “were baptized by him … confessing their sins” (Mark1:5). Yet others did not heed his preaching, like King Herod, who “was much
perplexed” by John’s words, “yet he heard him gladly” (Mark 6:20).
Saint John taught them how to live
a moral life and so to prepare themselves to welcome the Messiah, “the Lamb of
God, who takes away the sin of the world” (cf. Luke 3:10-14; John 1:29). They
liked what he said, but they would not follow it. For those caught in the mire of
sin, the truth is both confusing and pleasurable. Herod liked listening to John
because he knew he spoke the truth, even if Herod would not yet bring himself to
turn from his sinful ways. It is not all that different in our own day.
Even so, the glory of Saint John
the Baptist is not to be found in the attraction of the crowds or of royalty.
It is, rather, to be found in his unrelenting efforts in preparing the way for
the Lord Jesus, even to the point of offending the ruling class of Judea
because of his public and verbal witness to the truth and dignity of marriage.
As an authentic prophet, John bore witness to the truth
without compromise. He denounced transgressions of God's commandments, even when
it was the powerful who were responsible for them. Thus, when he accused Herod
and Herodias of adultery, he paid with his life, sealing with martyrdom his
service to Christ who is Truth in person.[4]
It is in the loss of his head that we see the
glory of Saint John the Baptist and why we can say he is “a glorious failure.” In
the eyes of this world, he failed because he did not convert the hearts of all who
heard him; in the eyes of the Church, however, his life is glorious because he never
shied away from leading them to Jesus, even at great cost to himself. John was
not afraid to decrease so the glory of Jesus might be better known.
If Saint John the Baptist spoke out so clearly
against adultery in defense of marriage, one can only guess what he would be
crying out today along our rivers. He was not afraid to let his voice be used
for testimony to the Truth, for testimony to Jesus Christ. For what do we use
our voices?
If we are honest and set our politics aside and
begin to look at each again his human beings made in the image and likeness of
God, we will readily see a myriad of areas of our society that would lead Saint
John to cry out, “Even now the axe is laid to the root of the trees; every tree
therefore that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire” (Matthew 3:10)! How many issues today – from adultery to false marriages to
contraception to abortion to divorce to greed to inhospitality and fear of the
stranger – to warn us of the Second Coming of the Messiah, crying out, “His
winnowing fork is in his hand, to clear his threshing floor, and to gather the
wheat into his granary, but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire”
(Luke 3:17).
In the face of such atrocities, you and I, dear
brothers and sisters, cannot remain silent; we, too, must place our voices at
the service of the truth and in the service of the love of God and of neighbor.
Like John, if we speak about
God’s truth boldly and continue to point toward Jesus, we are going to provoke
opposition in this world from those who don’t want to hear it because it
doesn’t suit their agenda. It may mean the loss of income, employment, possession
and life. We’ve got to maintain an eternal perspective: God has a plan for
each of us that began before our birth and extends beyond our death. The
goal is not visible success in this life. It’s covenant fidelity (hesed)
toward the one who is greater than us, whose sandals we are not worthy to tie,
but nonetheless promises to “raise us up on the last day” (John 6:40).[5]
Can
there be any doubt that our society is in great need of conversion? Who will be
its heralds if not you and me?
In
1956, J.R.R. Tolkien wrote a rather profound sentence: “Actually I am a
Christian, and indeed a Roman Catholic,” he said, “so that I do not expect ‘history’
to be anything but ‘a long defeat’ – though it contains … some samples or
glimpses of final victory.”[6]
In this, he echoes something he put on the lips of the Lady Galadriel: “…
together through the ages of the world we have fought the long defeat.”[7]
The
pages of history are filled with many examples of saints whose witness,
courage, and love reshaped their societies. Yet its pages are also filled with
many examples of saints whose witness, courage, and love did not reshape their societies,
as seems to be the case in our day. Saint Augustine continued to call men and women
to the truth even as the Roman Empire collapsed around him in the midst of glimpses
of the final victory of Jesus Christ. Consequently, his life, too, might be
said to have been a glorious defeat because his witness and wisdom continues to
teach us today how to follow Christ faithfully and fully.
Like
Saint John the Baptism, then, together with Saint Augustine and so many others,
may we never be afraid to raise our voices in the face of seeming long defeat,
but let us fight it together. Let us, rather, take comfort in the glimpses of
Jesus’ victory he allows us to see and raise our voices loudly and clearly in
the service of the truth and love. Let us take courage in the example of Saint
John the Baptist and never fear our lives becoming glorious failures for Jesus
Christ. Amen.
[1] Saint Augustine of Hippo, Sermon 293.1.
[2] Ibid.
[3] John Bergsma, “Birth of a Glorious
Failure: The Nativity of John the Baptist,” The
Sacred Page: A Blog on the Bible and Catholic Theology by Michael Barber, John
Bergsma, Brant Pitre, and John Kincaid, 21 June 2018. Available at http://www.thesacredpage.com/2018/06/birth-of-glorious-failure-nativity-of.html#more.
Accessed 22 June 2018.
[4] Pope Benedict XVI, Angelus Address, 24 June 2007.
[5] John Bergsma, “Birth of a Glorious
Failure.”
[6] J.R.R. Tolkien, Letter to Amy Ronald,
15 December 1956.
[7] Ibid., The Fellowship of the
Ring: Being the First Part of The Lord of the Rings (Boston: Houghton
Mifflin Company, 1994), 348.
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