Tag: St John the Baptist

Synaxis of the Baptist

The Greek Church honors the Lord’s forerunner today. It is one of six times the Church recalls the liturgical memory of the Forerunner. St John the Baptist has achieved quite a place in our theology. We recall that John is the cousin of the Lord (Elizabeth’s cherished son); he was a member of an ascetic group; he’s known as a prophet; he preached the coming of the Messiah; he “spoke truth to power”, and lost his head as a consequence.

“The memory of the righteous is celebrated with hymns of praise, but the Lord’s testimony is sufficient for you, O Forerunner. You were shown in truth to be the most honorable of the prophets, for you were deemed worthy to baptize in the streams of the Jordan Him whom they foretold. Therefore, having suffered for the truth with joy, you proclaimed to those in hell God who appeared in the flesh, who takes away the sin of the world, and grants us great mercy.” (Troparion, Tone 2)

While the Roman Church has a different way of honoring the saints, the Byzantine Church has its own and immediately following the Theophany, the commemoration of Jesus’ baptism, we have John the Baptist, the holy man inextricably connected with the Theophany. And this is a critical point: saints, especially the prophets, need to be located on the liturgical calendar that closely relate to the Paschal Mystery or to the season preparing for a great feast.

What is the message of the Baptist? Why must we attend to his announcement? St. John the Baptist announces the coming of the one who would baptize with fire and the Spirit, proclaiming a new life for humanity. We believe that the Baptist precedes Jesus into Hades, the Kingdom of Death, to announce liberation to the souls held there. He is, therefore, the model of sanctity manifesting not his own glory. The controlling idea: the Son of God is the center of our attention. As a parenthetical idea, John’s image was always painted in scenes where the artist would be trying to communicate the virtues of religious life. So, at point in art history you would not see a St Pachomius or a John Cassian or a Francis of Assisi without the Baptist nearby.

John tells us three important points:

“Behold, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world. He is the one of whom I said, ‘A man is coming after me who ranks ahead of me because he existed before me’” (John 1:29-30). “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand” (Matthew 3:2). AND “He [Jesus] must increase; I must decrease” (John 3:30).

The Church proposes the Holy Forerunner to us today as a paradigm of what we need to do: we must “prepare the way of the Lord,” by a similar ascetical struggle John engaged in. This ascetically struggle is possible for all of us, even in small ways. The Church as a good parent that the discipline of our souls and bodies can be filled with Jesus Christ. Here we believe that to be a faithful Christian also means imitating John the Baptist. To venerate John in body and spirit is not an easy task, yet must be undertaken if we are to be in heaven with the Holy Trinity.

St John the Baptist, pray for us.

Martyrdom of the Baptist

Today is the feast of the beheading of St. John the Forerunner and Baptist.

Sacred Scripture reveals that John the Baptist was a cousin of Our Lord whose mission was to preach repentance to Israel in preparation for the coming of the Messiah. The famous rebuke of King Herod for his unlawful marriage to Herodias, his brother’s wife, landed John in prison and on the wrong end of Herodias’ admiration. Concluding Salome’s dance for the King’s birthday he promised to give her whatever she asked for, even up to half his kingdom. Salome asked for the head of John the Baptist on a platter. Herod ordered the execution. We honor St. John the Baptist as the last and greatest of the Old Testament prophets.

The Kondakion (in the Byzantine Liturgy) reads:

The beheading of the forerunner was indeed a dreadful crime, somehow fitting into the plan of God, for John thereby became the herald of the savior’s visit to those in hades. As for you, Herodias, cry your eyes out, bewail your deed, for you preferred murder to the law of God, rejecting eternal, everlasting life, for a false and passing one.

Martyrdom of St John the Baptist

head-of-st-john-the-baptist-1600-1650-cleveland-museum_of_artOur remembrance today of the Baptist’s martyrdom calls to mind that we are baptized not only with water but also in the fire of the Holy Spirit. Today, I keenly recall that we are in fact, unfit to untie the Lord’s sandals. That we need the Spirit to cry Ecce in front of the person of Jesus. What further does this killing of the cousin of the Lord teach us? What value does our memorial have in reality for us today?

Benedict XVI said, “celebrating the martyrdom of St John the Baptist reminds us too, Christians of this time, that with love for Christ, for his words and for the Truth, we cannot stoop to compromises. The Truth is Truth; there are no compromises. Christian life demands, so to speak the “martyrdom” of the daily fidelity to the Gospel, the courage, that is, to let Christ grow within us and let him be the One who guides our thoughts and actions” (August 29, 2012).

Martyrdom of St. John the Baptist

Beheading the Baptist detailThe Martyrdom of St. John the Baptist (cf. Mark 6:17-29) is liturgically recalled today. For centuries, St. John the Baptist served as the principal model for those in religious life and as a model for Christian manhood. I always find John the Baptist a figure that convicts my Christian life.

There was a time when images of sainted founders of religious orders and other holy personages were painted with an image of the Baptist to remind the viewer many Christian virtues: the pursuit of and willingness to die for the truth, the discipleship needed to be a proclaimer of the Gospel, to build a relationship with the Messiah, to be in pursuit of the virtue of perseverance of the seeker, living the ascetic ideal, and the like.

We have to attend to St. John the Baptist not only because he was a cousin of Our Savior, but he also presents to us a method of how to live in relation to Him from whom we have eternal life. The Church gives us a rare example of holiness to contemplate that is not given to other saints: a feast of birth and death.

On the score of what the Baptist faced with passion, that is, the categorical rejection of sugar-coating the truth, and the refusal to be politically correct, the saint is images the correspondence of faith and reason. The high degree of intercourse with reality is something we don’t much appreciate today and much less desire to walk in the same footsteps. We too often lack courage –the gift of the Holy Spirit.

The enduring importance of St. John the Baptist’s example, hence, is the important call to each of us to ask the Holy Spirit to give us the gifts we need to be disciples of the Lord and missionaries in the world today. We can’t be faithful to God’s holy word with Divine Help, the same help St. John the Baptist relied upon.

Distinguished from Christ

the BaptistWe have arrived at Gaudete Sunday, the Third Sunday of Advent. It’s a short time before the celebration of the Lord’s Nativity. In both forms of the sacred Liturgy we encounter the Lord’s cousin, Saint John the Baptist. The supreme lesson the Baptist teaches is that we are not Jesus, which seems obvious to say but in reality so many think they are the messiah and therefore do not live in humility. Here is an excerpt from a meditation by Saint Augustine on the Prophet Saint John the Baptist:

“What does to prepare the way mean, except to pray as you ought, to be humble-minded? Take an example of humility from John himself. He is thought to be the Christ, but he says he is not what people think. He does not use the mistake of others to feed his own pride. Suppose he had said: I am the Christ. How easily would he have been believed, since that was what people were thinking before he spoke! But he did not say it. He acknowledged who he was, distinguished himself from Christ, humbled himself.”

Seeking the “one who is greater”

Prophet John the BaptistToday, we locate ourselves in the second week of Advent. (I hope I am more centered this week than I was last.) The Church hears from the Lord’s cousin, the Forerunner and Prophet John the Baptist in the gospel reading. Saint John is rather mysterious and yet he’s an attractive figure who has the unique work of pointing us to the Kingdom of God unfolding in front of us; he also points out the Messiah. That’s exactly what we attempt to do within the various communities to which we belong: family, parish, religious, work, and social.

The mature Christian (or the one who takes his or her spiritual life we seriousness) takes up the Baptist’s work of doing what he did: bring others to the Lord. Each with his own work. The outward role in salvation history of Mary and Joseph, Simeon and Anna are very different, as is with John the Baptist, but also with each one of us sharing the Good News.

We seek and serve  and love “one who is greater than us.”

Nativity of Saint John the Baptist

Naming of St John BaptistChrist is the completion of the law for righteousness unto every one that believes. … For this reason the blessed Baptist is brought forward, as one who had attained the foremost place in legal righteousness, and to a praise so far incomparable. And yet even thus he is ranked as less than one who is least: “for the least, He says, is greater than he in the kingdom of God.” But the kingdom of God signifies, as we affirm, the grace that is by faith, by means of which we are accounted worthy of every blessing, and of the possession of the rich gifts which come from above from God. For it frees us from all blame; and makes us to be the sons of God, partakers of the Holy Ghost, and heirs of a heavenly inheritance.

St. Cyril of Alexandria
Sermon XXXVIII [Commentary on Luke]

The Passion of Saint John the Baptist

As forerunner of our Lord’s birth, preaching and death, the blessed John showed in his struggle a goodness worthy of the sight of heaven. In the words of Scripture: Though in the sight of men he suffered torments, his hope is full of immortality. We justly commemorate the day of his birth with a joyful celebration, a day which he himself made festive for us through his suffering and which he adorned with the crimson splendor of his own blood. We do rightly revere his memory with joyful hearts, for he stamped with the seal of martyrdom the testimony which he delivered on behalf of our Lord.

Saint Bede the Venerable
Office of Readings

In an era where nihilism is prevalent, hearing that someone is full of hope for immortality is striking. What does Saint Bede mean? We know from experience that the life we live is full of contradictions and divisions in mind and heart. But we have today a man who knows his humanity and the truth of a promise that only Someone else can make good. Losing one’s head in this world allows for the soul to truly live in the next.

The Passion of Saint John the Baptist


Feast of Herod ASpinello.jpgO God, who willed that Saint John the Baptist should
go ahead of your Son both in his birth and in his death, grant that, as he died
a Martyr for truth and justice, we, too, may fight hard for the confession of
what you teach.


The Church honors the cousin of the Lord, John the Baptist. The name of the feast is correctly called “The Passion of Saint John the Baptist” is a hinge feast of a prophet and lover of Truth.

We pray for those who stand up for what’s right and truthful in the face of hostility.