{"id":33543,"date":"2016-06-24T11:09:26","date_gmt":"2016-06-24T15:09:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/communio.stblogs.org\/?p=33543"},"modified":"2016-06-24T11:09:26","modified_gmt":"2016-06-24T15:09:26","slug":"nativity-of-saint-john-the-baptist-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/communio.stblogs.org\/index.php\/2016\/06\/nativity-of-saint-john-the-baptist-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Nativity of Saint John the Baptist"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/communio.stblogs.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/06\/Baptist-Nativity-stone.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-33544 alignleft\" src=\"https:\/\/communio.stblogs.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/06\/Baptist-Nativity-stone-300x200.jpg\" alt=\"Baptist Nativity stone\" width=\"300\" height=\"200\" srcset=\"https:\/\/communio.stblogs.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/06\/Baptist-Nativity-stone-300x200.jpg 300w, https:\/\/communio.stblogs.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/06\/Baptist-Nativity-stone-768x512.jpg 768w, https:\/\/communio.stblogs.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/06\/Baptist-Nativity-stone.jpg 960w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/a>Hic Pr\u00e6cursor Domini natus est!<\/p>\n<p>Indeed, we honor the nativity of John the Baptist today. Only two others are honored with a feast day for their Nativity: Our Lord and Savior and His beloved and Great Mother, Mary.<\/p>\n<p>The Church prays to God who lifted up for us the Baptist as the precursor for the Incarnate Word of God, that he <em>make ready a nation\u00a0for the Lord\u2019s coming and direct the hearts of all the faithful\u00a0into the way of salvation and peace<\/em>.<\/p>\n<p>It is revealed to us that the blessed forerunner of the Lord, John, was a martyr. His martyrdom was for his stance, that is, his teaching, on adultery:\u00a0\u201cIt is not lawful for thee to have your brother\u2019s wife.\u201d At the heart of it all was that John spoke the truth; he challenged civil authority to live as they should and he called his contemporaries to be faithful to the faith of their Fathers.\u00a0Yet, the crafty concubine of Herod silenced John before he could\u00a0convert the King Herod and his court to repentance and belief in the Messiah.<\/p>\n<p>John the Baptist was not alone in the witness of his life and death as many revered saints spoke similar truths and ended their lives by spilling their blood: among them, Saints\u00a0John Chrysostom, Thomas Becket, and Stanislaus. Who will do similar today? Is our faith strong enough to face death?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Hic Pr\u00e6cursor Domini natus est! Indeed, we honor the nativity of John the Baptist today. Only two others are honored with a feast day for their Nativity: Our Lord and Savior and His beloved and Great Mother, Mary. The Church prays to God who lifted up for us the Baptist as the precursor for the &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/communio.stblogs.org\/index.php\/2016\/06\/nativity-of-saint-john-the-baptist-2\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Nativity of Saint John the Baptist<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[32172],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/communio.stblogs.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33543"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/communio.stblogs.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/communio.stblogs.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/communio.stblogs.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/communio.stblogs.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=33543"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/communio.stblogs.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33543\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":33545,"href":"https:\/\/communio.stblogs.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33543\/revisions\/33545"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/communio.stblogs.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=33543"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/communio.stblogs.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=33543"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/communio.stblogs.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=33543"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}